THE LOST BATTALION: SECOND BATTALION THESIS
Transcript of THE LOST BATTALION: SECOND BATTALION THESIS
A'siO
THE LOST BATTALION: SECOND BATTALION
131ST FIELD ARTILLERY, 1940-1945
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
By
Elmer Ray Milner, B. A.
Denton, Texas
August, 1975
Milner, Elmer Ray, The Lost Battalion: Second Battalion,
131st Field Artillery, 1940-1945. Master of Arts (History),
August, 1975, 106 pp., bibliography, 53 titles.
As a part of the Texas National Guard, the Second
Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery went on active duty
as World War Two errupted and eventually became trapped in
Java by Japanese forces. It became known as the Lost
Battalion after its surrender because it lost all
communication with the Allies for over three years. The
Japanese forced these Americans to work in Burma on a
railroad construction project connecting Burma to Thailand.
After the railroad's completion in 1944, the Lost Battalion
remained in various prisoner-of-war camps until liberation
came in August, 1945.
Research sources consulted include the prisoner-of-war
project of the North Texas State University Oral History
Collection, published memoirs of former captives, pertinent
United States government documents, and contemporary
newspapers. Secondary materials investigated embrace books
and periodicals.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF
Chapter
ILLUSTRATIONS. . . . . . . . . .. 0
I. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . .
II. FEDERALIZATION OF THE TEXASTHIRTY-SIXTH DIVISION . . . .
III. ASSIGNMENT OF THE SECOND BATTALIONTO THE SOUTH PACIFIC. . . . . . . .
IV. UNITED STATES-NETHERLANDS EASTINDIES RELATIONS. . . . . . . .
V. SURRENDER AND EARLY CONFINEMENT . . .
VI. LATER CONFINEMENT . . . . . . . .
VII. LIBERATION. . . . . . . . . . . .
VIII. ANALYSIS OF MOBILIZATION AND CAPTUREOF THE SECOND BATTALION . . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Pageiv
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4
15
34
67
77
94
99
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1. Sea Voyages of The Lost Battalion. . . . . . . . 33
2. The Lost Battalion's arrival and departureand Japanese Amphibious Attack. . . . . . . . 66
3. Railroad Constructed by Allied Prisonersof. War . . . . . . . . . ... 0...0. . . .0 . 0 91
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CHAPTER I
IN TRODUCT ION
In the summer of 1940, world conditions were
extremely unstable, Japanese forces occupied much of
China's territory, and wishing to insure the complete
isolation of the Chinese people, Japan insisted that the
British close the Burma Road.1 In Europe, Germany over-
whelmed the French defenses and forced France's surrender.
Great Britain waited across the English Channel for the
expected German invasion and prepared for the Battle of
Britain. The Italian Army finalized plans to invade
Egypt.2
In the United States, the citizens carefully watched
world events as the American Congress debated the proposed
Selective Service bill. The proposal, also known as the
Burke-Wadsworth bill, was discussed throughout the summer,
and if it became law would introduce the first peacetime
military draft and mobilization in the nation's history.
1The Japanese blockaded all of China's coast, and theonly Chinese access to the sea was over the Burma Road thatran from Lashio, Burma, to Kunming, China. F. F. Lilu,A Military History of Modern China: 1924-1949 (Princeton:Princeton University~Press, 1956), p. 207.
2Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, The SecondWorld War, 6 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.,1948), 2:224, 256, 319, 469.
1
2
A congressional joint resolution on August 27, 1940,
authorized President Franklin D . Roosevelt to mobilize
the Organized Reserve Corps and the National Guard. On
September 14, 1940, Congress approved the Selective Service
bill and sent it to the president, who signed it two days
later.3
Since Roosevelt wished to increase the strength of
American forces as quickly as possible, he issued orders
for the mobilization of several state National Guard units
throughout the country. The Texas National Guard began
its tour of duty as the Thirty-sixth Division, United
States Army, on November 25, 1940, at Camp Bowie, Texas.
Within weeks, the division increased its manpower from
11,737 officers and enlisted men to nearly 15,800 by the
addition of new officers and Selective Service inductees
from Texas and surrounding states.4
The Thirty-sixth Division contained a smaller unit,
the Second Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, whose members
hailed from small towns and cities of West Texas, including
3United States Statutes at Lar e, 1939-1941, 54:858,965; New York Times, September 15, 1940, pp. 1, 30;September 17, 1940, p. 1; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorgeBundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York:Harper and :Brothers, 1947T~ p. 347.
4Official History of the Thirty-sixth Division file,Texas Army National Guard archives, Camp Mabry LAusti7,Texas; Dallas Morning News, November 29, 1940, section 2,p. 1.
3
Abilene, Decatur, Jacksboro, and Lubbock. The agrarian
background and the frontier heritage of many battalion
members, coupled with the economic conditions in Texas
during the late 1930s, insured the tenacity of the new
soldiers, and prepared them for the ordeal that awaited:
forty-two months in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
The total departure from United States contact with this
entire military unit when captured led to the phrase,5
"The Lost Battalion."
5Dallas Morning News, March 5, 1942, section 1, p. 4.
CHAPTER II
FEDERALIZATION OF THE TEXAS THIRTY-SIXTH DIVISION
The Texas Thirty-sixth Division was comprised of
an amalgamation of men with diversified backgrounds who
joined for patriotism, for an association of friends,
and for monetary reasons. From their own accounts
related thirty years later to an interviewer of Texas
prisoners of war, one may piece together patterns of
thought that led to enlistment.
W. L. Starnes had not thought of joining the National
Guard; he had a good job working on a seismograph crew
exploring for oil. Though he claimed Decatur, Texas, as
his hometown, Starnes's work required his travelling over
much of the northern part of the state. When he returned
to Decatur in late autumn of 1940, Starnes discovered that
many of the local young men were members of Headquarters
Battery, Second Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery
Regiment, the Decatur unit of the Texas National Guard,
and were then enroute to Camp Bowie, Brownwood, Texas,
after being mobilized. Starnes decided that if it could
be arranged for him to be sent to Brownwood to join his
friends, he would volunteer for the draft. The local
4
5
Selective Service Board accepted the young man ts enlistment
and sent him by train to Camp Bowie.'
George Lawley of Lubbock later remembered that he
enlisted because he felt it was "the patriotic thing to
do." Lawley was older than most guard recruits and was
not subject to the draft, but he was interested in
military service none the less. In 1940, as the United
States drifted to the brink of war, Lawley joined theTexas National Guard so that he could be in the service
with friends who had already enlisted.2
J. B. Heinen, Jr., a Dallas resident, was a graduate
of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and was
a commissioned officer in the Texas National Guard. Heinen
also looked upon membership in the guard as an act of
patriotism, and as a duty. He enjoyed the guard program
and wanted to be a part of it.3
Lawrence Brown of Decatur joined the National Guard
for monetary reasons. Effects of the Great Depression
persisted in North Central Texas by 1940, and the remuner-
ation Brown received every three months for attending
1W. L. Starnes, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 186:4.
2 George Lawley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 164:2.
3J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 174:13.
6
the required training meetings ". . . kind of helped out
a little bit."4
Another young man, Horace Chumley, joined the Decatur
unit only one week before mobilization. Chumley wanted
to attend a technical school and he felt that joining the
National Guard would provide him the opportunity. If he
waited to be drafted, he reasoned, he might be attached
to an area of training that he would dislike.5
Alfred Brown also joined the Decatur battery after
the announced federal mobilization of the unit. Brown
had already registered for the draft, so he just enlisted
at the armory one month prior to the division's activation.
Brown had friends in the battery, and by joining he could
serve with his boyhood acquaintances.6
C. A. Cates, also of Decatur, had joined the guard
several years prior to mobilization and had risen in the
ranks from a private to a non-commissioned officer. Upon
his graduation from the Agricultural and Mechanical College
of Texas, Cates was commissioned a second lieutenant. He
regarded membership in the National Guard seriously and
tried to convince the enlisted men of the gravity of the
4Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 178:2.
5Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 199:2-3.
6Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 188:2-5.
7
world situation and their roles in the unit. Few were
impressed. Even Cates acknowledged that the unit had
". . . a summer camp which was a picnic. . . . We were
inspected and scored and graded and raked over the coals
if we didn't make a certain mark. But still, it was taken
rather lightly, I think."7
George Burns did not consider nor worry about the draft;
he joined Headquarters Battery in Decatur to be with his
friends. Although some of the veteran guard members con-
sidered the program little more than a social club, Burns
did not. By the time he entered the unit, mobilization was
imminent and the men were beginning to take their roles
soberly.8
P. J. Smallwood joined the guard while he was still
in high school, so that he could attend summer camp. A
Plainview High School friend, who had been a former member
of the Army Junior Reserve Officer's Training Program and
was now a sergeant in the guard, persuaded Smallwood to
enlist. The unit commander, Captain Robert W. McDaniels,
a Plainview bank teller, assured the potential recruit
that joining would only obligate him to go to summer camp
7 C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 185:2.
8George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 176:2.
8
each year and to attend regular guard meetings once
a month.9
Frank Fujita, an Abilene High School student, had
a friend who belonged to E Battery in Amarillo. Fujita's
friend presented the National Guard as an attractive
adventure and convinced Fujita to join. This enticement
precipitated an animated discussion at the high school.10
The teachers polarized into separate groups. One group
said Fujita could not legally join because he was not a
citizen. The second group argued that Fujita was a natural
born citizen and therefore was eligible. The second group
proved to be correct, and Fujita remained in the unit.11
George Killian worked at the Amarillo Hotel when
friends persuaded him to join E Battery of the Second
Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery Regiment. Being
single with no dependents and only nineteen years old,
Killian succumbed to the slightest pressure.12
B. D. Fillmore was a member of F Battery in his
hometown of Jacksboro. He had entered the Agricultural
P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 166:2-3.
10Fujita's father was a native Japanese who had settledin the United States and married an American girl.
llFrank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 59:2.
12George Killian, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56:3.
9
and Mechanical College of Texas in September before
mobilization in November. He left school and returned
home to assume duty with his friends. Like so many others,
Fillmore had joined because his friends were already members
of the guard and because of the two-week summer camps.13
Jack Moss realized that all his friends were enlisting
either in the National Guard or the army. Since more
friends belonged to the guard, Moss waited until the unit
received orders to mobilize before signing up at the Amarillo
Armory, so that he could be with his friends. At Camp Bowie
Moss had adequate opportunity to reflect upon his action,
as he spent six weeks on a kitchen police detail.14
Keith Naylor hailed from Wichita Falls. In the summer
of 1940, several of Naylor's close friends were members of
D Battery. When notice of mobilization arrived, Naylor
decided the guard was the best way to serve, so he was
sworn in one month prior to the November mobilization.15
Glenn Pace wanted to complete his year of military
obligation and return to college. He and two friends
travelled from their hometown of Denton to Dallas to join
13B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 162:3.
14Jack Moss, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 145:2-3.
1 5Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 72:1-2.
10
the regular army for one year. The recruiting sergeant
in Dallas told Pace and his companions that they could
join the army for a minimum of three years. The three
returned to Denton and joined D Battery of the Second
Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery Regiment.16
Uell Carter worked for the Plains Chevrolet Company
in Amarillo. His parts manager was a master sergeant in
E Battery of the Second Battalion who repeatedly asked
Carter to join the unit. The sergeant promised Carter
that the battery would have a beer social once a month,
paid meetings, and the pleasure of a two-week encampment
each summer.17
For a time after the mobilization, some units remained
on active status at their hometown armories. The Headquarters
Battery stayed in Decatur for over a month before being
transferred to Camp Bowie. When the units reported for duty,
the men found their new surroundings to be quite primitive.
Streets and sidewalks were trails of mud; the housing was
a group of leaky tents. Disappointedly, the men learned
that they would keep their pre-mobilization weapons and
equipment that antedated the First World War. Within the
16 Glenn Pace, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 184:3.
17Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56:3.
11
next few weeks, however, some of the National Guardsmen
regarded the lack of new weapons as being offset by the
extensive training.18
One new soldier who felt the training too extensive
was W. L. Starnes, who had volunteered for the draft to
be with his friends from Decatur. Upon arriving at
Camp Bowie, Starnes received assignment to Campany F of
the 142nd Infantry Battalion. After spending several
weeks in the infantry, including complete infantry basic
training, Starnes transferred to the Decatur unit.19
Horace Chumley, who had joined the guard to get
technical training, attended radio school at Camp Bowie
for six months. When the division went to Louisiana to
participate in simulated war games, he was assigned to
the battalion executive officer, Colonel Winthrop Rogers,
as radio operator.20
George Burns worried about the older weapons and
the ill-trained men that arrived at Camp Bowie in
December, 1940. A serious man who kept himself informed
about world conditions, Burns pleasantly noted that the
18C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 185:4-6;Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 178:3-5.
19W. L. Starnes, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 186:2-4.
2 0 Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 199:3-5.
12
men gained satisfactory military expertise as the training
increased in intensity.21
While Headquarters Battery reported to the Decatur
Armory each day until December, A Battery remained on
duty at the home armory in Plainview until the middle of
January before departing for Camp Bowie. When the unit
joined the division at Brownwood, the Plainview men also
became disillusioned over the equipment. Some of the men
received their full complement of personal equipment later
than others. P. J. Smallwood was not issued a rifle until
the Second Battalion was on board ship going overseas.
Unlike Burns, Smallwood remained singularly unimpressed
with the Louisiana maneuvers, and regarded the war games
as an endurance test rather than comprehensive training.22
Others noted the inadequate training and equipment;
some men complained that only the officers receiving train-
ing. George Lawley served as a member of the seventy-five
millimeter gun crew, but his section did not fire the
artillery piece while in training. The field guns were
21 George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH176:2.
P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH166:5-9.
13
French Model 1897 which had been modernized by replacing
the wooden wheels with rubber tires.23
Frequently, when equipment was unavailable, the men
used salvage materials. Frank Fujita served on maneuvers
with a section that acted as an anti-tank unit. Fujita
and his men removed driveshaft cowlings from abandoned
trucks, mounted these on axles with wheels, and called
the improvised weapons anti-tank guns. As the umpires
and scorers watched, Fujita's gun crew would aim at a
tank, often an army truck with "tank" printed on the side,
and yell "bang." The umpires would then decide if the gun
had successfully disabled or destroyed the tank. Fujita
called this simulated action ". . . broomstick toy soldier
training."1124
Uell Carter found the instruction extensive. Carter's
unit became a training section upon reaching Camp Bowie.
Selective Service draftees were assigned to the battery
to bring the group to required strength of personnel.
Thirteen weeks of physical conditioning soon followed.
At first, the men marched one mile each day, then one and
one-half miles a day, and progressively increased until the
23 George Lawley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH164:5-6.
24 Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH59:11-12.
14
battery marched a distance of twenty miles without
hardship. In contrast to other battalion members's views,
Carter believed that the National Guard had provided
comprehensive schools for training members of the gun
sections, radio personnel, and mechanics, and cooks.
25Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University LibraryOH 56:4-6.
CHAPT]ER III
ASSIGNMENT OF THE SECOND BATTALION TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC
After the Thirty-sixth Division returned from the
Louisiana maneuvers, some of the men merited furloughs.
Within a short time, the division commander alerted
the Second Battalion for assignment, and ordered the
recall of the furloughed troops. When Lawrence Brown
returned to Camp Bowie, he noticed that the division
headquarters offered the older National Guardsmen an1
option of discharge or transfer from the Second Battalion.
Battalion officers advised Brown and George Burns that
the army selected the unit for overseas duty because of its
2outstanding marks on maneuvers. J. B. Heinen interpreted
the mobilization legislation as prohibiting assignment of
1Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 178:6.
2This account is corroborated by the official UnitedStates Army history of World War Two, which states thatregular units were composed primarily of recently draftedrecruits and therefore unfit for overseas duty. Conse-quently, specific National Guard units were chosen by thearmy for overseas duty. Lawrence Brown, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 178:6; George Burns, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, North Texas State University Library,OH 176:5; Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plansand Preparations, 4 vols. in sub-seriesThWar Department,UnitedStates Army in World War Two (Washington: Departmentof the Army, 1950), 1:186-187.
15
16
activated National Guard units outside the Western
Hemisphere except in case of war. The army circumvented
this congressionally imposed condition by asking for
volunteers, and the Second Battalion "was asked to do that
volunteering."?3 When Frank Fujita, surveying instrument
sergeant4 in the First Battalion, heard that the Second
Battalion was being shipped out, he transferred from the
First Battalion on November 5. Unfortunately, the less
prestigious position of machine gun sergeant was the only
vacancy.5
In other sections of the unit, transfers were also
occurring. P. J. Smallwood, unlike Fujita, did not
volunteer for transfer. It was out of Smallwood's hands.
He was told to ". . . watch the bulletin board. If your
name appears, you'll be going overseas." The commander
transferred Smallwood along with others from First Battalion,
Service Battery,6 to Second Battalion, Service Battery, to
replace the older men.
3J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 174:5.
4The surveying instrument sergeant installed precisionequipment to control firing accuracy.
5Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 59:4-9.
6This section furnishes transportation and otherservices for the battalion.
7P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:11.
17
Robert Gregg welcomed the transfer to Second
Battalion. He and the majority of the younger men in
the battalion felt that the overseas assignment offered
them a great opportunity.8 On the evening of November 10,
1941, the Second Battalion boarded two trains at Camp Bowie.
One train left that night; the second train pulled out the
next day. Unit officers advised the men that their desti-
nation was the Philippine Islands.9
The battalion detrained at Fort McDowell, Angel
Island, San Francisco, California. The troops, processed
and given overseas innoculations, left for a short tour
of the city. While on leave in San Francisco, Larry Brown
and a friend met a veteran soldier who told them ". . . where
you guys are going, I'm glad I'm not there anymore."10
On November 21, 1941, the battalion boarded the
United States Army transport Republic docked at pier
fifty-seven.11 When the ship steamed out of San Francisco
8Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 69:3-6.
9J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 174:14; Frank Fujita, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 59:4-9.
10Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 178:10; Frank Fujita, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 59:4-9; Keith Naylor, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 72:4-9.
1 1 Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH188:16-20; P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, OH 166:12.
18
Bay, it joined the Pensacola Convoy, so named because
the U.S.S. Pensacola, a cruiser, accompanied the vessels.12
While the Republic joined the convoy, the Texans
became seasick. Frank Fujita noticed that ". . . everybody,
including the captain of the ship became seasick."
Alfred Brown, a rural young man whose experience with a
large body of water had been rather limited in North Texas,
watched the ground-swells just outside San Francisco and
compared them to small hills. He expressed amazement that
the approximately six-hundred-feet long Republic was being
tossed about by the waves. Presently, Brown went below
deck to the galley for supper and saw troops regurgitating
in all areas of the ship. As Brown passed through the
"chow line," he discovered another reason for the men's
sickness; the cooks were serving sauerkraut and weiners.
Brown looked at the food on his tray and wondered how he
possibly could eat it. He sat down and slowly and carefully
12Since the departures of military vessels were notannounced in the press, it was necessary to rely on theUnited States Army official historians for facts involvingthe Pensacola Convoy. The Fall of the Philippines citesa radio message dated December 12, 1941, from GeneralGeorge C. Marshall to General Douglas MacArthur, to pointout that the seven vessels in the convoy were the UnitedStates Army transports Holbrook, Republic, Me s,Bloemfontein, Admiral Halstead, Farmer, and Claumont.Aside frothe Second Battalion, the convoy carried afield artillery brigade, ground crews for the SeventhBombardment Group, seventy crated aircraft, 500,000 roundsof .50 caliber ammunition, five thousand bombs, andmiscellaneous equipment. Louis Morton, The Fall of thePhilippines, 7 vols. in sub-series, War in~the Pacific,United States Army in World War Two (Washington: Departmentof the Army, 1953), 4:146.
19
ate every bite. Then he went upon the apex of the deck,
allowing the wind to blow directly into his face, and
watched the movie Waterloo Bridge being shown on a lower
level of the deck. Brown managed to retain the food and
never experienced seasickness.13
Keith Naylor suffered nausea the first night due to
the San Francisco ground-swells and the evening meal, but
he recuperated the next day. Lawrence Brown was not so
fortunate. A navy boatswain told Brown to get in the
middle of the ship where the pitch and roll were less
severe. Brown looked, but ". . . never did find the middle
of that darn ship."14
The Republic docked at Honolulu on November 28, and
stayed two days. The troops went into the city on four-hour
passes; half the battalion went ashore in the morning and
half from four in the afternoon until ten in the evening.
Many noticed armed soldiers on alert. Uell Carter saw
armed troops on the docks and on the tops of buildings. To
his inexperienced eye ". . . they looked like they were
ready for an attack." B. D. Fillmore went ashore and saw
a machine gun set up in one of the squares with sand
13Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:4-9; Alfred Brown, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 188:12-14.
14Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 72:4-9; Lawrence Brown, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 178:11.
20
bags around it." Cates noted several barbed wire entangle-
ments, a large number of military police, and mounted
machine guns at busy intersections. When George Lawley
went into Honolulu, he also observed large numbers of
military police on duty. P. J. Smallwood went ashore with
the second group from four o'clock until ten o'clock in the
evening. As Smallwood returned to the Republic, he saw
machine gun nests and soldiers racing around in jeeps.
Smallwood surmised that the city ". . . was very definitely
under martial law." While ashore, Keith Naylor passed the
railroad depot and noticed that the station, railroad tracks,
and water supply facilities were under armed military guard.15
The Republic received fuel, fresh water, and fresh
vegetables during the men's tour of the city. Later, with
the troops back on board and the loading of supplies complete,
the Republic steamed out of the harbor to rejoin the convoy.
The crew recognized an addition to the convoy, the subchaser
U.S.S. Niagara. Alfred Brown heard that this ship was a
15Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56:7-10;B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 162:7-9; C. A. Cates,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 185:9-12; George Lawley, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 164:10; P. J. Smallwood, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 166:12; Keith Naylor,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 72:4-9.
21
converted yacht donated to the navy by the eminent Dodge
family. Soon out of Honolulu, some members of the
battalion manned their respective battle stations while
others scrubbed down decks and stood watches. In
addition, the troops exercised every day as part of their
physical training. 16
Two days after the Republic's departure from Hawaii,
on December 2, the navy placed the ship on alert. Uell
Carter especially regretted the alert because several new
movies were scheduled to be shown on deck after dark; after
the navy's directive, the troops could not even strike a
match on deck after sundown. In spite of the alert, the
Republic still flew the American flag from the mast, and
flags were displayed on both sides of the ship. One night,
a few days out of Honolulu, the watch saw a great many ships
passing in the darkness, headed for Hawaii. The watch
reported the sighting and signalled the ships in international
code; the ships did not reply. Cates was on deck at the time
and personally spotted masts of several ships.17
16Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:4-9; P. J. Smallwood, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 166:15-18; B. D. Fillmore,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 162:7-9;Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 188:12-14.
17Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:7-10; Glenn Pace, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 134:6-12; C. A. Cates, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 185:9-12.
22
On December 7, the ship commander called all troops
to their battle stations and advised them that the
Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Cates recalled the
mysterious fleet spotted a few nights earlier that did
not answer the Americans's signal. In view of the position
of the two convoys at that particular time, Cates believed
that he had witnessed the Japanese fleet that had launched18
the attack.
Sitting on the deck playing poker with some friends,
Smallwood heard the announcement of the infamous Pearl
Harbor attack. Shortly thereafter, he and his "buddies"
began chipping paint off the deck and others started
painting the deck battleship grey. As the paint detail
worked, the ship's crew opened the cases of machine guns
and began to mount them on the rail.19
Glenn Pace and some of his friends painted over the
American flags decorating the sides of the ship. Pace
thought to himself as he washed, "Well, I'll never make
it home." His more optimistic friends attempted to encourage
him. George Messer from Port Arthur said, "Glenn, don't
worry. They don't have a bullet over there with your name
18Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:4-9; C. A. Cates, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 185:9-12.
19P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:15-18.
23
on it." An acquaintance from Denison, Texas, told Pace,
"Well, we'll knock those Japanese out in no time. They
can't see ten feet in front of them." Horace Chumley
discussed the war with his companions and they all
wondered if they would ever return to Texas. Several of
the men in Alfred Brown's group stated that America and
her Allies would defeat the Japanese in two weeks. Brown
disagreed and said, "No, it's going to be a long hard20
one [ar/.
Later that day, some of the men referring to
Frank Fujita asked if there was a Japanese on board.
Fujita felt he should answer the charge himself. He told
the group of men that there was no Japanese on board; to
his knowledge there were only Americans on the Republic.
He conceded that there was one sergeant on board who was
half Japanese of ethnic descent, if that information was
significant. The men understood and said nothing more.21
Jack Moss did not have time to worry about the war
or Japanese on board ship. As part of a gun crew, he
brought the artillery pieces from the hull onto the deck
20Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 188:16-20; Horace Chumley, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 199:8-9; Glenn Pace, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, OH 134:6-12.
21Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:4-9.
24
for additional fire power. Due to the movement of the
ship and the inexperienced troops, the project required
almost three days. Robert Gregg and some of his friends
supplemented the navy gun crew. At a later date, the
navy tried to arrange for the artillerymen's permanent
assignment to the Republic, but the army would not permit
the transfer.22
The Pensacola Convoy, still proceeding toward the
Philippine Islands, now under Japanese attack, received
a naval message ordering the convoy to Suva in the Fiji
Islands.23 Keith Naylor, on deck when the Republic
reached Suva, recalls that the convoy remained in port
only a few hours before steaming out to sea again. This
22Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 69:3-6; Jack Moss, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 45:4-5.
23At this point the official United States Armyhistorians, the only scholars permitted to research thePentagon files, differ. One volume of the series, TheUnited States Army in World War Two, Global Logistics andStrategy, 1940-1943, cites December 8 as the date thatthe Joint Board (early version of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff) followed the navy's suggestion and ordered theconvoy back to Hawaii; this order was recalled on December 9President Roosevelt's suggestion. A subsequent volume inthe series, The Fall of the Philippines, which states thatthe decision of the Joint Board to order the convoy backto Hawaii was not made until December 9 and withdrawn thefollowing day at the president's request, contradicts theearlier version. The latter work is probably correctsince the sources cited are the minutes of the Joint Boardfor December 9 and minutes of the meetings of the Army Chiefof Staff for December 10, 1941. Richard M. Leighton and
25
brief visit is corroborated by Frank Fujita, who noticed
that the men were not allowed to go ashore, but the ship
"., . .just took on fresh fruit and water and left
immediately. ,24
Nevertheless, the navy ordered the convoy to sail to
Brisbane, Australia. As they neared their destination,
war ships bristling with guns and camouflaged with war
paint raced toward the convoy. The men of the battalion
did not know if the approaching vessels were friend or foe.
P. J. Smallwood and his friends fearfully watched the
oncoming ships and realized for the first time the full
Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943,4 vols. of sub-series, The War Department, United StatesArmy in World War Two (Washington: Department of the Army,1955), 4:149; Louis Morton, The Fall of the Philippines4:145-146.
24The official army version as written in The Fallof the Philippines seemingly disputes the short~stay inSuva, and states that the navy ordered the convoy to theFiji Islands on December 9, and gave no additional in-structions until December 12 when it advised the convoyto proceed to the ultimate destination, Brisbane, Australia.One possible explanation of this inconsistency is that theconvoy in fact did leave Suva soon after arriving to returnto Hawaii. This version is substantiated by the earliervolume, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943, whichstates that the navy ordered the convoy back to Hawaii onDecember 8, and changed the orders one day later. If thisis the case, the convoy would have travelled in a circle.Uell Carter calculated that the vessels did sail in a circleof possibly three hundred miles or more, because each nightas he went on deck he noticed that the ship's bow pointedto a different direction. Leighton and Coakley, GlobalLogistics and Strategy, 1940-1943, 4:149; Uell Carter,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 56:7-10.
26
significance of the war. Fortunately, the ships were
friendly.25
When the convoy reached Brisbane on December 22, 1941,
it met almost insurmountable difficulties. Heinen saw that
the Republics captain had ". . . one helluva time getting
into Brisbane because the harbor wasn't deep enough. . . .t
Finally, the vessel docked satisfactority, and the battalion
landed in Australia. Since the men of the Pensacola Convoy
were the first American soldiers to land in Australia, the
officers felt that marching the troops from the ship to their
bivouac area, the Ascot Race Track, would boost the Australians's
morale. The shortest distance from the ship to the race track
approximated one mile, but the route of the soldiers's march
went up one street and down another to impress the native
population. The bands played, flags waved in the breeze, and
the troops began to march. Smallwood heard the cheering as
he walked. Occasionally, an Australian shouted, "Oh, the
yanks have come to save us." Smallwood viewed this confidence
as ironical because each American's equipment consisted of a
trainer gas mask, a 1903 rifle with only four rounds of
ammunition, a pair of old canvas leggings, and a British
type World War One helmet. Smallwood thought the Americans
were quite comical looking.26
25p. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:15-18.
26J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 174:22-24.
27
All the troops did not participate in the parade;
some of them busily unloaded the equipment from the
Republic. As soon as the men had removed all the vehicles
and gear from the ship, it departed for the United States.27
The Americans stored their equipment in an assigned ware-
house. While moving the battalion gear into storage, one
of the men discovered that a partition separating the
American storage area and the adjoining warehouse did not
extend to the ceiling; the Tiger Beer Company of Malaya
leased the other side of the building. Carter and his
friends discovered that they could easily slip over the
divider and sample the Tiger beer. The personnel learned
that they could not complete the equipment's transfer into
the warehouse because someone had left the battalion trucks's
keys in San Francisco.28
Meanwhile, the troops marching to Ascot Race Track
discovered interesting things about their hosts. First,
the Americans learned that when teatime arrived, the
Australians stopped all activity, regardless of its
importance. Glenn Pace, setting up camp at Ascot, solicited
help from some of the Australians to hold the ropes until
the Americans could stake the guy ropes. A cook rang the
27Ibid.
28Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:10-14.
28
bell for tea, and the Australians released the ropes and
left the area, causing the tents to collapse on the troops.
Next, the newly arrived men found that the Australians
preferred mutton to beef. The Americans loved the
Australian people, but everyone agreed with George Burns's
statement ". . . We couldn't hardly go for that lamb." 29
Except for the Australians's choice of meat and their
devotion to teatime, the Americans liked the country and
its people. When Fillmore went into Brisbane, he found
that Americans did not need money. The native population
insisted on feeding the visitors and buying their beer.
As Starnes walked down a street in Brisbane some Australians
stopped him and invited him into their home for a visit.
On one occasion, Chumley and his friends ordered meals
and drinks in a restaurant, only to find that the
Australians paid the bill.30
Everyone was not so cordial to the Americans. One
Australian told Glenn Pace, "We don't need you yanks over
here. We just need your weapons." Pace said, "I didn't
ask to come over here, and if there's any way that you can
get me home, you can have every bullet I've got."31
29Glenn Pace, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:10-14.
30B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 162:10; W. L. Starnes, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 186:16-17; Horace Chumley,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 199:12-14.
3 1Glenn Pace, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:13.
29
The battalion spent Christmas in Brisbane, and most
of the men visited Australian homes for the holiday meal
of mutton. Three days later the Second Battalion returned
to the dock and boarded one of the ships that had also
been in the Pensacola Convoy, the Bloemfontein. After
the loading operations had been completed, the battalion
commander instructed the unit to go ashore. The men began
to leave the ship and still further orders arrived advising
them to return to the vessel. The second loading was final,
and the men remained on board. While the troops waited on
the Bloemfontein, Australian taxi drivers drove up alongside
the ship and conducted a brisk business trading whiskey for
American watches and money. The troops acquired a large
supply of whiskey and began to celebrate. The army then
ordered the battalion to proceed to Java to provide ground
forces for the Nineteenth Bomb Group from Clark Field in
the Philippines. The battalion commander desired to
apprise the men of the new orders, and an officer instructed
the soldiers to "fall in." Carter noticed that the whiskey
bartered to the troops by the taxi drivers was almost
consumed, and when the battalion commander ordered the men
to meet formation, ". . . very few were able to fall in.
They just fell out." Colonel Blucher S. Tharp, the
battalion commander, became angry. He told the troops
30
still sober enough to understand that the unit was going
to Java to help the air corps.32
The Bloemfontein cast off on the night of December 28,
1941, and slowly sailed out of Brisbane harbor. Smallwood
was somewhat apprehensive about the Bloemfontein since the
vessell had followed the Republic across the Pacific with
a large line running from one vessel to the other. Conse-
quently, Smallwood considered the ship to be a slow steamer,
and possibly have weak engines. However, when the
Bloemfontein cleared the mouth of the river down from
Brisbane harbor, ". . . all hell broke loose. . . the stern
went into the water and this ship was really a runner."
Smallwood blissfully watched the ship achieve a speed of
" . . .eighteen to twenty knots in nothing flat."33
The battalion travelled up the eastern coast of
Australia around the Great Barrier Reef to the Gulf of
Carpentaria. Frank Fujita, standing guard on deck,
observed that ". . . everybody started going beserk again
on ship." A large group of vessels had been spotted ahead
of the Bloemfontein. The Americans ascertained from the
approaching vessel's signals that the ships were friendly,
32Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 178:18; C. A. Cates, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 185:14-15; Uell Carter,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 56:10-14.
3 3 Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:10-14.
31
and the Bloemfontein proceeded on to Port Darwin on the
coast of Australia. The battalion remained on board at
Darwin, and within a few hours the Bloemfontein hoisted
anchor and headed northward to Java.34
A few days after leaving Darwin, a sailor advised
Alfred Brown and his companions that Japanese submarines
had attacked and possibly sunk an Allied ship only forty
miles ahead. Following this conversation, Brown and the
friends remained on deck with their life preservers on.35
While on watch several nights, Fujita noticed the
beauty of the area as the ship passed through the Lomback
Strait between Bali and Java. One day out of Surabaja,
Java, the convoy commander placed the ship on alert because
a Japanese submarine was following the convoy. Suddenly,
a Japanese torpedo struck the tanker S.S. Liberty directly
in front of the Bloemfontein. 3 6
Smallwood and his associates were shooting dice on
deck when they heard the general quarters alarm. Though
scared, Smallwood enjoyed watching the action by the
United States Navy. "The cruisers moved back and the tin
cans /destroyersJ came in. They were really hitting at
34Tbid.
35Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 188:21.
36Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:10-14.
32
everything. We had a torpedo off the bow and one off
the stern. But no one got hit but the submarines. 37
They got hit. There two of them. From one of them
we saw an oil slick." The following day, January 11, 1942,
the Japanese invaded Borneo, largest island of the Dutch38
East Indies, and the Second Battalion landed on Surabaja.
37Smallwood stated later that he was unaware of thesinking of the S.5. b4jrt.
38 p. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:25.
33
4
4
1-
VV.
4W22
722
;n
Figure 1Sea Voyages
CHAPTER IV
UNITED STATES-NETHERLANDS-EAST INDIES RELATIONS
Shortly after the Japanese invasion, Dutch
authorities accused the United States of abandoning
its Allies, and carried this charge to the world's press.
This censure climaxed several years of Dutch apprehension
over American foreign policies.1
As the Japanese became increasingly more aggressive
in the South Pacific area during the 1930s, the
Netherlands colonial government became concerned about
its security. This feeling of hopelessness grew when
the Germans conquered the mother country and turned to
fear as an invasion by the Nipponese Army became probable.
As early as 1939, an American travelling in Java, the main
island of the Indies, found the consensus of the Javanese
to be that the take-over probably would come as soon as
Japan conquered China. The colonial government that year
considered possible attack of such gravity to devote more
than half the annual budget to defense.2
1New York Times, March 3, 1942, p. 4; March 7, 1942,p. 1; Times (London), March 10, 1942, p. 4.
2Marc T. Greene, "Lifeblood of the Netherlands,"Asia, 39 (December, 1939), 708.
34
35
After steadily being drawn into the Allied cause,
the United States became involved in planning the defense
of the Far East in late 1940. In December, Admiral
Harold R. Stark, United States chief of naval operations,
instructed American Asiatic fleet commander Admiral
Thomas C. Hart to open discussions with the British and
Dutch supreme commanders in the Far East. Stark assumed
that the two countries would be Allies of the United States
in the event of a Pacific war, but he also contemplated
that the Dutch might be reluctant to participate because
of the fear of Japanese reactions. The naval leader
cautioned Hart to commit the United States to no particular
military or political decisions. Stark felt that the
American-British staff conference, scheduled to begin soon
after the first of the year in Washington, would be the
appropriate time for major decisions and commitments.3
The Washington conference4 evolved from American
progressive inclination toward active involvement in the
war. Originally, American interests had entailed only the
sale of small numbers of aircraft and munitions to Great
3U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigationof the Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings, 79th Cong., 1st sess.,1946, pt. 4:1929.
4The conference lasted from January 29 to March 27,1941, and was referred to as ABC-1 by United States Armyconferees. Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, andCasablanca, 1943, Foreign Relations of the United States(Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1968),p. xxiii.
36
Britain, but by late 1940 had escalated to result in
half of America's production of airplanes and war
materials being sent to the British. With British funds
exhausted, President Roosevelt introduced the Lend-Lease
bill to supply war materials for Allies according to need
rather than repayment ability. Consequently, the American-
British conference constituted a meeting of inextricably
intertwined Allies coordinating military plans of the two
countries around the world in the event the United States
actively entered the war.5
The conference members agreed that the Allies would
concentrate on the defeat of Germany and Italy first; if
Japan entered the war, Pacific action would be limited
until resolution of the European war. The Allies disagreed
on one major point: the British naval base at Singapore
which Great Britain's conferees felt symbolized the
empire's strength and should be held at all cost. The
British insisted that the United States commit a large
portion of its fleet to the South Pacific. The American
representatives refused, pointing out that loss of the
5Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans andPreparatios, 4 vols. in sub-series, The War Department,United States Army in World War Two (Washington: Departmentof the Army, 1950), 1:367-371; Conferences at Washington,1941-1942, p. 9; U. S. Congress, Senate, CressionalRecord, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1941, 87, pt. 1:4487; UnitedStates Statutes at Lar;e, 1941, 55:31.
37
United States bases in the Philippines would also be
a blow to American prestige. However, the representatives
pointed out that in order to concentrate on the European
theater, loss of the Asian bases might be necessary. The
Americans advised the conference that the United States6
contemplated no increase in her Far East forces.
Meanwhile, the Japanese attempted an economic invasion
of the Netherlands East Indies. American Consul General
Walter A. Foote reported from Batavia, the colonial capital,
that Japan had approached the Dutch authorities with the
proposition of joint exploitation. The Nipponese wanted to
participate in the harvesting of the natural resources of the
colony and simultaneously promote trade and economic relations.
The Japanese also suggested that the Dutch government allow
unlimited immigration of Japanese nationals despite the
Netherlands's policy regarding quotas, allow Japanese medical
personnel to practice without restriction, and insure that
all applications or requests of Japanese nationals be treated
in a friendly spirit. Furthermore, they requested permits
for exploration in areas the Dutch government reserved for
itself. The Japanese asked permission to fish in East
Indian waters, to begin air service between the Dutch
colony and Japan, and to abolish all restrictions on
6Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, GlobalLogistics and Strategy, 1940-1943, 4 vols. of sub-series,The War Department, United States Army in World War Two(Washington: Department of the Army, 1955), 4:52-54.
38
navigable areas and tonnage for Japanese ships. Finally,
the Japanese wanted to install a cable from the colony to
Japan and revoke the Dutch prohibition of the Japanese
language in communications between the two peoples. Foote
promised to ascertain the reaction of the Netherlands
authorities and cable the information to the State Department
the following day.7
Consul Foote informed Secretary of State Cordell Hull
the next day that the Netherlands government rejected the
Japanese proposals as unthinkable, thus forming no
foundation whatsoever for further negotiations.8 The Nether-
lands minister, A. Loudon, called on Stanley K. Hornbeck9 and
advised him that the Japanese and Portugese considered
establishment of an airline from Japan to Portugese Timor.
Should these talks achieve fruition, the Dutch feared they
would be subjected to Japanese aircraft flying over fortified
areas of the Dutch Indies. Both the British and Dutch
governments had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the
Portugese, said Loudon. The Netherlands minister solicited
American assistance in influencing the Portugese.10
7Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, Foreign Relationsof the United States (Washington: U. S. Government PrintingOffice, 1956), 4:25-26.
8Ibid., pp. 27-28.
9Stanley K. Hornbeck served as political relationsadvisor to Cordell Hull.
10Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 4:28.
39
Two weeks later, on February 8, 1941, Joseph Grew1
telegraphed Hull regarding intensified Japanese encroachment
in the South Pacific. Grew felt that Great Britain could
not then nor in the future spare enough naval power to
defend Singapore, which in Grew ts opinion was vital to the
defense of the area. Grew reminded Hull that the morale
of the Far East British forces, the Dutch, and the
Nationalist Chinese depended almost entirely upon the hope
of ultimate American aid.12
Admiral Stark's suggestion of conversations between
Allied Far East commanders resulted in a conference at
Singapore during the week of April 21-27, 1941, and included
Americans, British, and Dutch.13 The British again proposed
that the defense of Singapore be the keystone of the plan;
once more the American representatives disagreed. Colonel
Allen C. McBride, the United States military delegate,
conveyed his impressions to Major General George Grunert,
commanding general of the Philippines Department, at the
conclusion of the conference. Grunert reported to the
War Department that McBride had discouraged the British
from expecting that additional forces would be ordered to
"1Joseph Grew served as American ambassador to Japan.
12Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 6:2918.
13The Singapore conference was also known as ABDA.Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, p. xxiii.
40
the Philippines, that American planning went south of
Manila, or that increased United States forces would use
Luzon as an offensive base. Grunert pointed out that
Great Britain presumed the United States Asiatic fleet
was at the disposal of the British commanders for almost
total devotion to the defense of Singapore.14
The Netherlands charge d'affaires, W. V. Van Boetzelar,
requested in Washington that the United States join the
Dutch and British governments in making a declaration to
Japan. Should the Nipponese make additional major moves
to the south, the United States, Britain, and the Nether-
lands would conclude that their interests were affected.
If the United States government wanted to take alternate
action, Van Boetzelar added, the Dutch would gladly consider
any suggestion; the State Department demurred.15
Some United States government civil servants urged
limited action to show United States concern. Despite
Washington's reluctance to make a formal statement,
Hornbeck wrote and forwarded a paper to the War Department
recommending three-fourths of the United States fleet be
kept at Hawaii to insure Singapore's security. He further
14Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 394-395.
15Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 5:141.
41
suggested sending more planes and submarines to the
Philippine Islands's command and additional equipment
to China, Singapore, and the Netherlands East Indies.
Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall opposed the
proposals, saying a collapse in the Atlantic would be
fatal to the American cause. He continued by stating that
while a collapse in the Far East would be serious, it would
not be fatal.16
On May 3, 1941, Dutch authorities announced that
future exports from the Indies to Japan might be reduced
below previous figures; the Nipponese immediately requested
a review of the situation. The Dutch consented on the
condition that the Japanese cease further expansion of
their companies in the Indies, the Dutch reserve full
freedom to carry on the war against Germany, the Dutch
make no promises regarding rubber or tin, and the colonial
government determine the amounts of commodities to be
released for shipment to Japan.17
The Netherlands foreign minister, E. N. Van Kleffens,
called on Sumner Welles, American undersecretary of state,
to say that morale in the Netherlands East Indies remained
high and defensive measures taken had impressed him. The
1 6 Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, p. 397.
17Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 5:141-142.
42
foreign minister expressed confidence in the colony's
ability to repulse any invader in every respect except
in numbers of aircraft. When Van Kleffens asked about
the reinforcement of bases in the Philippines, Welles
told the minister that urgent requirements of the United
States defenses dominated the priorities. The Dutch official
requested anti-aircraft artillery, small arms ammunition,
and bombers, and gave the undersecretary his opinion of
recent Japanese economic proposals, stating that he feared
the Japanese would use the rupture of negotiation as an
excuse to threaten the Dutch. Nevertheless, the minister
did not expect the Japanese to launch an open attack on
the Indies in the immediate future.18
While statesmen discussed the unsteady situation, the
United States Atlantic Fleet expanded at the expense of
the Pacific naval force. From January 2, 1941 to July 12,
1941 the navy transferred from the Pacific to the Atlantic
three battleships, one aircraft carrier, eight cruisers,
seventeen destroyers, and fifteen auxiliary vessels. No
ships were transferred to the Pacific from the Atlantic.19
President Roosevelt desired that some restraint be
placed on Japan to indicate the United States displeasure
18Ibid., pp. 250-251.
19Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 6:2918.
43
of Japanese policies. The president moved to prevent the
use of American financial facilities and to restrict trade
between the two countries. Six weeks earlier on June 14,
Roosevelt had issued an order freezing the assets of
belligerent European countries.20 This action placed
Japan in the frozen assets category and was designed to
bring under control by the United States government all
import-export trade negotiations and transactions which
involved Japanese nationals or interests. The announcement,
Executive Order Number 8832, dated July 26, 1941, also
included provisions for freezing the assets of China,
incorporated specifically at the invitation of Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek to aid the Chinese government.21
Following Roosevelt's action, E. N. Van Kleffens
called on acting secretary of state Sumner Welles. The
Dutch feared Japanese retaliation against their colony,
and the minister told Welles that he hoped the Dutch
government would be kept better informed of the American
government's actions regarding the situation in the South
Pacific. The minister noted that his government would not
20Federal Register, vol. 6, no. 146, doc. no. 41-5384,July 26, 1941.
2 1 Diplomatic Papers, Japan, 1931-1941, Foreign Relationsof the United States(ashington: U. S. Government PrintingOffice, 1955), 2:266-267; Federal Register, vol. 6, no. 109,doc. no. 415359, June 14, I94E.
44
appease the Japanese; he wanted to know what steps the
United States would take if this policy resulted in
hostile action. Welles reminded the minister that the
two countries had conferred through their military
representatives and for the moment he could say only that
the situation was uppermost in the mind of the American
government.22
In contrast to the Americans, the British government
assured the Dutch of assistance. On August 1, 1941, the
British ambassador to the United States, Sir Neville Butler,
told the Netherlands minister, Van Kleffens, that the
entire Far Eastern situation had been reviewed and
His Majesty's government would guard the rights and
possessions of the Dutch as far as possible. The ambassador
gave his assurance that Great Britain would do everything
in its power to help if the Japanese attacked the colony.
Aid would be based on two things: the British would decide
the appropriate time and type of action; any British
movement would depend on steps of the United States
government.
The British encouragement emboldened the Dutch to
issue the following statement:
The Authorities ZNetherlands East Indiesgovernment] feel that the occupation of Indo-Chinais a direct threat to the Netherlands Indies and
22Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 4:350-351.
23Ibid., pp. 281-282.
45
that under the circumstances any exports that wouldmaterially add to Japants potential power would notbe in the interest of the Netherlands Indies.Resumption of normal relations is possible onlyafter the removal of this threat.2 4
The Dutch announced that oil could not be exported
to Japan unless the Japanese government publicly declared
they would not invade the Dutch colony and the Nipponese
troops would not continue occupation of Indo-China.25
The Japanese quickly responded. Eiju Amau, Japanese
minister for foreign affairs, conferred with the Netherlands
minister in Tokyo, General J. C. Pabst, on August 23, 1941,
and entreated the Dutch to make no move harmful to the
relations between the two countries. Amau urged the colony
to honor all contracts with Japan, and assured the Dutch
minister that the Japanese occupation in no way jeopardized
the Dutch Indies. When Pabst requested a public declaration,
the Japanese stated that public opinion was so aroused over
the Dutch attitude that it would be impossible at that time.26
Meanwhile, A. Louden pressed the American State Department
for assurance of aid should the Japanese become aggressive
toward the Dutch. The minister reminded the secretary that
the Allied military conferences were complete and were
4Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 5:271.
25Ibid., pp. 281-282.
26 Ibid.
46
approved by the Dutch. The Netherlands government
anxiously awaited the United States government's approval
of the conference plans.27
While the Dutch sought pledges from their Allies,
the British strongly and publicly discussed the United
States's commitment to the defense of the South Pacific.
Duff Cooper, special envoy from the Crown to Singapore,
arrived at Batavia, Java, on September 19. When questioned
by newsmen about the base in Singapore being used by
American forces, Cooper coyly replied that there existed
". . . no agreement on paper, but the answer is obvious."
When asked if ". . . the ABCD front was merely wishful
thinking," Cooper retorted, "emphatically no. It is a
fact." 28
This publicity distressed American military men.
Admiral Hart complained to the Navy Department about
British Air Chief Marshal Earle Brooke-Popham, who had
visited him in Manila for brief discussions regarding
patrol bombers. When Brooke-Popham returned to Singapore,
however, he implied to the press that extensive talks had
occurred. Obviously upset, Hart said, ". . . the fanfare
of publicity which accompanied the above visit and which
the British always seek to give to our talks with them in
2 7Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 4:389.
28Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 10:5227-5228.
47
the area is unwise." The American admiral believed that
early conversations which constituted only the first steps
toward realization of a viable and ongoing Anglo-Dutch-
American alliance against Japanese expansion should have
no publicity.2 9
The Dutch became increasingly apprehensive. At the
Singapore conference, the British had outlined a proposal
to form a defense against Japanese expansion, but this
plan had not developed to Dutch satisfaction. The British
vaguely promised help, but based their pledge on the action
of the United States, and the Americans were being non-
committal. Furthermore, needed war material available
only from the United States had arrived in limited
quantities. Consequently, when the Dutch Navy observed a
build-up of Japanese forces in late November, 1941, near
the Pelew Islands east of the Philippines, the Netherlands
government became alarmed and sought advice from their
Allies. When the Dutch suggested a joint statement declaring
the area between the Pelews and the Dutch colony a defense
zone of the United States and Great Britain, the two larger
countries declined to join in the announcement. The American
chief of naval operations and the British admiralty
discounted the information about the Japanese build-up. The
American Navy regarded the Dutch proposal as political and
29Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 4:505.
48
hesitated to become involved. The British pointed out
that a joint statement might disturb current United
States-Japanese diplomatic negotiations and suggested the
Dutch issue a unilateral declaration to cover the colony's
own shores. This attitude soon changed.30
On December 5, a British reconnaissance plane spotted
a large Japanese convoy between Malaya and Siam. When the
pilot tried to approach the group, Japanese planes from
the accompanying aircraft carrier quickly forced the
British plane to leave the area. The Allies, upon receiving
the information, began to take a more aggressive stance.
The British War Office advised Brooke-Popham that assurance
of American help had been promised should the Japanese
invade another part of Siam, the Dutch East Indies, or
attack the British military in the area.31
The Netherlands East Indies War Department advised
the American consul general that they had intercepted and
decoded a communication from the Japanese ministry of
foreign affairs in Tokyo. The message included a code in
weather reports that would be used to keep the Japanese
in the Indies abreast of current events; East wind, rain,
would indicate war with the United States; North wind, cloudy,
3 0 Pearl Harbor Hearings, pt. 10:4874.
31 Ibid., pp. 5082-5084.
49
war with Russia; and West wind, clear, would signal war
with Britain. The consul forwarded the information to
the State Department, but cautioned that such messages
had occurred frequently since 1936; he transmitted the
telegram on December 6, 1941.32
On Monday following the Pearl Harbor attack, President
Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress requesting
a declaration of war. Later that day, Roosevelt telegraphed
the congressional assent to Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and added, "Today, all of us are in the same boat with you
and the people of the Empire and it is a ship that will not
and cannot be sunk." Churchill answered Roosevelt on
December 9 by proposing a conference to discuss the
". . . whole war plan in the light of reality and new
facts. . .. 33
After receiving the president's approval, Churchill
sailed for America on the battleship H.M.S. Duke of York.
The prime minister received press reports and official
communiques that indicated an enraged American nation
would be devoted entirely to Japanese destruction. Churchill
feared American preoccupation with Japan, in which case Great
Britain would be forced to fight Germany and Italy alone.
32Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941, 4:713.
33Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, p. 210.
50
The British leader and his staff hoped that they could
convince the president and his advisors that the Japanese
defeat would not cause the collapse of Hitler, but
destruction of Hitler would mean the annihilation of the
Japanese war effort. 3 4
As the British prime minister steamed across the
Atlantic, General George C. Marshall ordered Brigadier
General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Washington. The two men
met on the morning of December 14, 1941, and Marshall
outlined the situation. The Japanese attack impaired
American naval expectations and it would be months before
they could participate in large operations; the reinforce-
ment of weakened Hawaiian forces should take priority in
the Pacific; and, the Philippine Islands faced disaster.
Marshall wanted Eisenhower's recommendation for action.
After studying the situation, Eisenhower advised Marshall
to give all possible help to the Philippines and the Dutch
East Indies, but suggested the main effort should be toward
saving Australia as a base from which to operate. Marshall
agreed with this assessment.35
34Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: TheGrand Alliance (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1948),3:T1-643.
35Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York:Doubleday and Co., 1948), pp.T4 2.~
51
One week later the British delegation arrived in the
United States for the Washington conference that had code
name Arcadia. From December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942,
these leaders of the free world discussed their formal
objections. They formed a Combined Chiefs of Staff and
issued a joint memorandum outlining the destruction of
Nazi Germany as the major objective. An entry in a sub-
sequent section of the message indicated a secondary role
for the Allied war program in the South Pacific. The
Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed that only the necessary
force required for the safety of prime interests in other
areas should be taken from the attack against Germany.36
The Dutch began a publicity campaign during the
Washington conference designed to sway American public
opinion to their save-the-Indies viewpoint. On January 3,
1942, the Netherlands government in Batavia praised
General Douglas McArthur's stand in the Philippines and
reiterated the necessity of defending the Indies and the
vital importance of reinforcing the islands. The Dutch
stressed that if the colony fell, Japanese forces would be
released to operate elsewhere, and suggested the west coast
of the United States might be next. The colonial government
3 6Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, p. 210.
52
declared that the outcome of the war depended upon saving
the Dutch East Indies.37
The Dutch announced two days later that Major General
George Brett and Admiral Thomas Hart, both of the American
military establishment, had assumed roles as deputy
commanders in the Far Eastern unified command, and that
United States air and naval reinforcements would be
forthcoming.38
On January 11, Shiela Graham, noted American columnist,
joined the campaign and led an article on the Indies with
the statement, "The Netherlanders are good payers as well
as fine fighters." Graham pointed out that the Dutch paid
100 percent in cash for all war materials they received
from America. A New York Times feature writer, Hanson
Baldwin, soon joined the campaign with two articles
insisting on reinforcements for the Dutch.39
On the following day in New York, Colonial Lieutenant
Governor H. J. Van Mook reemphasized that sufficient American
reinforcements could hold the Indies. Van Mook presently
went to Washington and conferred with President Roosevelt.
Upon emerging from the White House, the Netherlander told
37New York Times, January 4, 1942, p. 10.
38Ibid., January 6, 1942, p. 7.
39Ibid., January 11, 1942, p. 3.
53
reporters that he had been given a great deal of encouragement
regarding attempts to strengthen the defense forces in the
South Pacific. 4 0
Meanwhile, the Japanese, after heavy aerial bombardment,
invaded Borneo, the largest island of the Dutch East Indies;
on the same day the Second Battalion, 131st Field Artillery
landed on the main island of Java. The Bloemfontein
docked at Surabaja, Java, on the afternoon of January 11,
1942. The decorated sampans and barges impressed the
Second Battalion men. The United States destroyers remained
at anchor next to the Bloemfontein, which eased the anxieties
of the American soldiers. When the troops left the ship,
Lawrence Brown thought to himself, "Oh, my Lord! What have
we run into here? Can't talk their nativej language, can't
understand them." Uell Carter, however, was fascinated.
He considered Surabaja picturesque. Street cars ran down
the center of the wide boulevards which were ". . . lovely,
scenic green gardens with flowers."41
An officer assigned P. J. Smallwood and Horace Chumley
to the crew unloading supplies from the ship. The men had
40 Ibid., January 19, 1942, p. 3; January 2, 1942, p. 4;January 21, 1942, p. 6.
41 Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56:14;Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 178:21; P. J.Smallwood, personal interview, Oral History Collection, NorthTexas State University Library, OH 166:26; Frank Fujita,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 59:15.
54
understood that the cargo on the Bloemfontein was ammunition,
but while unloading the cargo, they discovered that canned
milk filled the ship's holds. Chumley's section completed
its task late the following night. Shortly thereafter the
Dutch officers accompanied the men into Surabaja to an
exclusive hotel for dinner. The array of silverware on
each side of the plates overwhelmed the Texans. One of the
men gathered up the excess flatware while another held a
linen table cloth as the silver dropped in. This behavior
shocked the Dutch officials and waiters.42
While the dock detail had been unloading the ship,
the balance of the battalion boarded a narrow gauge railroad
car and travelled several hours to Malang, a community in
the mountains. Dutch school buses waited for the Second
Battalion as they detrained. The men boarded the buses
420n another occasion, Frank Fujita and six otherAmericans entered a Dutch canteen and watched variousDutch military men entertain several Royal Air Force people.Fujita noted that the Dutch and English ". . . were veryceremoniously drinking. . . with little thimble size glassesS. . .and /the~ Texans got a bottle apiece, sat down at thetable and threw the cap away and started drinking out of thebottle. . . . [TheJ Dutchmen and Englishmen /js7 eyes likedto have popped out. They had never seen anybody who coulddrink like the Texans." The aristocratic Dutch were appalled,and as Lawrence Brown found later, they ". . . wouldn't havea cotton-picking thing to do with us. . . ." P. J. Smallwood,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 166:26-29;Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 199:17-18; LawrenceBrown, personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH178:21-24; Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:15-20.
55
for Singosari Airfield, approximately seven miles away.
The Texans, arriving late on the night of January 11,
welcomed the Dutch cooks's greeting of hot coffee and
pastries.43 The battalion officers assigned the troops
to permanent-type brick barracks normally used by the
Dutch. Slits at the top of each wall provided ventilation
for the buildings; tile roofs covered the barracks. Open
ditches running through the camp constituted the only
sanitary facilities. To the Americans, the rooms inside
the barracks resembled horse stalls. Since they had neither
bunks nor bedrolls, the artillerymen found hay in a nearby
field and made beds on the floor. The men of the battalion
quickly utilized the one luxurious facility, the showers.44
The Second Battalion acted initially as ground crews
for the Nineteenth Heavy Bombardment Group. This air unit
had been forced to leave the original ground sections at
Clark Field when fleeing the Philippines. As the existing
runways proved too short for the large bombers, the officers
immediately assigned men to lengthen the landing strips
43Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:15-20; Uell Carter, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 56:14-19.
44Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:15-20; Uell Carter, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 56:14-19; C. A. Cates, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 185:17-18; Robert Gregg, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 69:9-11.
56
by using native labor. Rocks gathered from a nearby river
provided the base while small stones in the uneven areas
made a smoother runway. Simultaneously, other members of
the battalion became ground crews for the Boeing B-17
bombers. They refueled the aircraft, cleaned and oiled
the .50 caliber machine guns, and loaded the airplanes
with bombs. Within a short time, artillerymen were able
to remove, repair, and replace the aircraft engines; air
corps sergeants accomplished these tasks by giving
instructions and acting as cadre in training the battalion
troops.45
The artillerymen had great respect for the flyers.
The army used the large cumbersome planes as heavy bombers,
fighters, and transports. The ground crews noticed that
when the planes returned from missions the flyers jumped
out and kissed the ground; large holes from anti-aircraft
fire were frequently in the American aircraft wings. When
Glenn Pace asked a flight crew member if the damage could
be repaired before take-off time, the flyer said, "Heck, no,
we're fixing to go. .,. ."46
Not all the artillerymen served the air corps as
ground crews. The gun sections dug pits and set up their
45Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:14-19.
4 6Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 69:9-11; Glenn Pace, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 134:17.
57
artillery pieces. The four gun-sections of D Battery
utilized the first several days at Singosari to clean the
cosmoline packing grease off the cannon. Within a few
days, the cannon tubes pointed skyward and served as
anti-aircraft weapons when the first air raid occurred
on February 5.47
Frank Fujita served as machine gun sergeant and
guarded the runway. Scorning a fox hole for his position,
he requisitioned two .50 caliber machine guns from burned
B-17 bombers, and by using makeshift tripods mounted the
weapons on the back of a jeep. Fujita's anti-aircraft
jeep could scurry around the base and evade the attacking
planes. On the first occasion that Fujita fired both guns
simultaneously, however, vibration virtually dismantled
the jeep. After the first raid, the Japanese planes came
4 7 The men of the battalion differ on the details ofthe first air raid. George Burns saw seventeen bombersattack the field with the cook shack just inside the gatebeing the primary target, "one bomb hit right in that cookshack. . . one bomb hit in a building where they had beenunloading condensed milk off a ship and storing it. . . .You can imagine how the condensed milk was scattered there."Starnes and Fillmore disagree; they saw seventeen planesthat attacked the field and destroyed the barracks. Allagreed, however, with Fillmore who said, "After the firstone 5air rai47 you always kind of walked around with oneeye up in the air." P. J. Smallwood, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 166:29; Keith Naylor, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 72:14-17; George Burns, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 176:21-22; W. L. Starnes, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 186:22; B. D. Fillmore, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 162:16.
58
over almost daily, usually around noon, and flew one
bombing run over the field.48
Churchill, in the meantime, posed a question about
the British troops stationed in the Dutch colony. Could
evacuation be accomplished should it become necessary?
After the successful removal of troops from Dunkirk, the
British increasingly considered this means of saving the
Empire forces in the Indies. British Field Marshal
A. P. Wavell, supreme commander of the Allied South Pacific
forces, appraised the Netherlands East Indies military
situation and cabled Churchill that the Dutch colony could
be held only by air and naval superiority, which the Allies
lacked. Because of this capability, Wavell suggested the
abandonment of the Indies. At that time the Japanese
occupied all the islands except for Java, the main colonist
island. The field marshal recommended to Churchill that
efforts be concentrated toward saving Australia and Burma,
which Wavell considered vital for the prosecution of the
war against Japan. The British commander regarded the loss
of Java as a potentially harmful blow, but not fatal to
the war effort. Churchill agreed with Wavell's proposal
that the current British troops in the Indies not be
48Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:21-31.
59
evacuated because of the lack of sea power, but he did
order that reinforcements enroute to the area be diverted
to Australia.49
Unaware of the American-British decision to concentrate
on saving Australia, the Dutch continued their publicity
campaign. General Heim ter Poorten, commander in chief
of the Dutch forces, said the colony would be defended to
the last man and called upon America for additional planes
and anti-aircraft artillery. News magazines joined the
campaign with articles extolling the resoluteness of the
Dutch and describing how they had altered their beautiful
islands to repell the Japanese. Cecil Brown, a Columbia
Broadcasting System correspondent enroute to Australia
from Singapore, wrote that the survival of Java depended
upon American and British aid. Brown said the Netherlanders
felt that both Allies had not only failed the Dutch, but
also themselves.50
Shortly before the invasion of Java, the United States
Army Air Corps ordered the Nineteenth Bomb Group to abandon
the Indies and fly to Australia. The flyers suggested that
the Second Battalion accompany them, but the army had other
49Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, The SecondWorld War, 6 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.,1948), 4:140-142.
50Newsweek Magazine, January 2, 1942, pp. 15-16;February 16, 1942, pp. 21-22; March 2, 1942, pp. 14-15.
60
plans because ". . . they sent a General Barnes51 from
Australia to Java to give. . ." the men a speech of
encouragement, saying, ". . . to boost the morale of the
Allied people on Java it would be necessary for the
American troops. . . to stay and. . . make a show of
trying to fight." 52
With the aircraft leaving Singosari Airfield, the
Second Battalion again became artillerymen. The Dutch
told the Americans that the high command planned to
deceive the Japanese by racing vehicles around the island
to give the appearance of mass troop movement.53 The
action, called a motor march, continued for several days.
The unit ". . . drove all day and bivouacked at night. . . ."
Finally the truck convoy went into bivouac at a race track
near Garoet.54
Battery E had been left at Singosari Airfield to store
all the battalion equipment. Before the work could be
completed, however, the Japanese landed and the battery
51 General Julian F. Barnes, United States Army AirCorps, who accompanied the convoy from the United States,was the highest ranking American military officer inAustralia.
52Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:22-27.
53W. L. Starnes, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 186:30; Robert Gregg, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 69:14-18.
54Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 72:19-22.
61
moved into combat position near Surabaja. The Japanese
landed 92,000 troops in the area defended by 105 Americans
and 5,500 British and Australian forces. George Killian
found a motorcycle and rode out to survey the situation.
He saw Japanese soldiers slowly moving through the underbrush
and thought, "what are they creeping along for; everybody
knows they're there." Killian looked at the soldiers
closely and said to himself, "they sure are small and7
they sure are dirty." Killian speeded through the
Japanese to return to the American position.55
Captain Hollis Allen, Battery E commander, ordered
Frank Fujita to take a group of thirty-one men to a Dutch
Army emplacement and guard the approach to the city. An
English-speaking Dutch marine sergeant went outside the
enclosure and soon returned saying, "Sergeant, there's
a bunch of American troops coming down the road." Fujita
ran outside and peered at the approaching soldiers. Rumors
had been circulating that 20,000 American troops were enroute
to reinforce the island. To Fujita's dismay, however, the
oncoming troops were Japanese. Fujita yelled, "Americans,
hell. Open fire." The Japanese retreated to a close
55George Killian, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56:22-27;Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 59:21-31; Hollis Allen, The Lost Battalion (Jacksboro:Herald Publishing Co., 19497,p. 68.
62
village and Fujita's section opened fire on the village
with their artillery pieces, killing several enemy soldiers
before exhausting their ammunition supply. The section
then made a brisk attempt to escape the Japanese.56 The
battery regrouped and the commander ordered every man to
save himself. Carter and Killian drove to the nearest docks
and commandeered a Dutch boat for voyage to Australia. They
found no food or water on board; while the Americans
searched for provisions, Japanese planes bombed and sank
the boat.57
Fujita and a companion, Ben Keith, decided to retreat
to the mountains. At dusk they stopped at a house and
inquired about spending the night. The occupants, three
women and two girls, fed the Americans and gave them
lodging for the night. The next morning the women anxiously
knocked on the door and said, "Please, please, you must
leave. . . or you will get us killed. . . . The Japanese
are here." Fujita looked out the window and saw
t. . . Japanese all over the yard. One was at the front
door. . . . It so happened that we had picked a house that
was directly across from the railroad station." Fujita
and Keith calmly walked out the door and through the group
56Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:21-31.
57Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 56:29-31.
63
of Japanese soldiers who looked at the Americans and
moved out of their way. The two Americans strolled
through the front gate and headed for the edge of town.
Once out of sight of the house, the artillerymen began
to run. They asked everyone they met, "What's going on?"
But they received no answer. Finally, one man told them,
"Don't go. They're ZJapanese7 killing everybody. . .
[and7 paying the natives five guilden a head to point out
anyone trying to get out of town." The Americans reversed
their direction and returned to town. Presently they
recognized the International Red Cross building and went
inside, where they found the Red Cross representative busy
in his preparations for departure. They requested aid in
getting transportation out of town. When the Red Cross
representative discovered they were Americans, he refused
to talk to them saying, "They'll kill me if they see me
talking to you." Fujita became furious and said, "Okay
you son-of-a-bitch, if you're not going to help us, at
least take a letter. We'll write a letter, and you take
it and mail it so our folks back in America will know, at
least as of this date, we were safe." The representative
refused.58
While the Netherlands East Indies public relations
campaign progressed, the Japanese Army continued to advance.
58Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:32-37.
64
Allied forces, especially the Australians, had little
respect for Dutch military men. An Australian intelli-
gence officer requested information from the Dutch
headquarters about enemy troop movements and was advised
that the information was unavailable since the morning
paper had not yet been delivered.59
Lieutenant Governor Van Mook, having returned to
Java, raised criticism of American failures. He admitted
some Dutch blame, but felt the majority of the censure
should be placed on the United States. Van Mook posed a
question to the news reporters: If the Japanese could
conquer the Indies from one thousand miles away, should
not the Americans be able to send enough aid to save the
colony from nearby Australia? Other reporters joined
this renewed publicity campaign four days later when the
United States Army Air Corps ordered the American bombers
to Australia. One reporter said the planes abandoned Java
in its greatest hour of need. A leading British newspaper
criticized the United States for failing to reinforce the
Dutch before and soon after the beginning of the Pacific
war. The newspaper pointed out that the Dutch had counted
59Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, Australia inthe War of 1939-1945, 7 vols. (Canberra: Australian WarMemorial, 1957), 4:501.
65
on the reinforcements, and in many instances had paid
for them in advance.60
Supported by an unopposed navy and air force, the
Japanese Army continued to rout Allied troops. The Dutch
transferred the military headquarters from Batavia to
Bandung, located inland and more isolated from Japanese
attack. Leaving their families, Van Mook and several
other officials fled by plane to Australia. The lieutenant
governor of the collapsing colony made no attempt to hide
his bitterness toward the Allies, especially the Americans.61
On March 7, the Japanese penetrated the Bandung
perimeter and effective resistance in the Dutch colony
ended. Just prior to being overrun, the Bandung radio
station broadcast its final message that Americans received
at 7:55 A.M. New York time: "We are now shutting down.
Good-bye till better times. Long live the Queen." The
following day Java, the last unoccupied island of the
Dutch colony, formally surrendered.62
60New York Times, March 8, 1942, p. 1; March 10,1942, p. 1.
61Newsweek Magazine, March 16, 1942, p. 25.
62New York Times, March 10, 1942.
66
3
e
II41.
221-
ii1
v :Y; I4 t
Figure 2
Action on Java
IIIt
CHAPTER V
SURRENDER AND EARLY CONFINEMENT
Shortly after arriving at the Garoet Race Track,
the Second Battalion received news of the Dutch
capitulation. An officer told George Burns and several
others that the American unit was also surrendering, but
that the evacuation ships were ostensibly located off the
east coast of Java. Burns's group decided they had two
options. "We had a choice trying to make it down there
fJo the ships if we could get transportation. .
Otherwise, the ones that stayed there would still stay
organized in a unit." The officer warned the men that
confinement could last ". . . three months, six months.
Who knows? It might last a year."1 Burns thought to
himself, "My goodness, we'll be out of here in six
months."
Some of the men decided to attempt to reach the coast.
Jack Moss drove a group in his truck to the intended
1 Confinement ultimately lasted forty-one months andnine days. Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War (Wichita Falls:Nortex Offset Publications, Inc., 197T,~p. 15.
2George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH176:26.
67
68
evacuation area, but found ". . . no planes, no boats.
no nothing." Moss's group stayed in hiding for several
days until an American officer, advised by the British
of the group's location, came to the men and persuaded
them to surrender.3
Keith Naylor with two other Americans joined a group
of Australians and travelled to the southern coast looking
for an escape route. The Australians soon capitulated
and were joined by the other two Americans. This left
only Naylor who finally surrendered around April 1, 1942.4
One group did manage to escape. Glenn Pace with a
group of Americans from Dutch Headquarters managed to
reach Batavia and get on board the last ship to leave,
the Abad-De-Kirk; the ship reached Perth, Australia, after
being attacked by Japanese planes and submarines.5 Fujita
and Keith from E Battery were still at large. After leaving
the Red Cross building, the Americans noticed that the Dutch
population avoided them. Finally, one Dutchman offered to
take the two artillerymen home for the night. Furthermore,
3Jack Moss, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH145:11-14.
4Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH72:27-33.
5Glenn Pace, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH134:22.
69
he said, "I got some American cigarettes. . . . I'll give
you a 'Dutch wife' apiece, and we'll come back tomorrow
and surrender." The Americans accepted the offer and
accompanied the Dutchman to his home. They were
disappointed to find later that a "Dutch wife" was a
pillow Dutchmen placed between their legs while asleep in
the tropics to prevent perspiration from creating a rash.6
The battalion waited at the race track for further
instructions. Although the Japanese had given orders to
Allied survivors to preserve their equipment, the battalion
officers ordered the men to destroy all usable items.
Lawrence Brown's group systematically ruined all the
mechanisms of the rifles and guns. W. L. Starnes, who had
been driving a new 1941 Oldsmobile command car, drained the
water and oil out of the vehicle and ran the engine until
it became inoperative.7
Several days later, a Japanese officer came to the
race track to confer with the battalion officers. The
appearance of the Japanese officer astounded George Burns.
He thought, "People like that conquering people like us?"
Scrutinizing the commander closely, Brown exclaimed, "My
Lord of Mercy. We surrendered to that guy?" The Japanese
6Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH59:37-38.
7Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 178:32-34; W. L. Starnes, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 186:32.
70
ordered the battalion to proceed from the race track to
a tea plantation, Ondernehming Waspuda, up in the mountains.8
Lieutenant Wade Hampton from Decatur gave money to
Alfred Brown with instructions to purchase whiskey for
the men. Brown procured several bottles of Haig Original
Scotch Whiskey from natives that had raided a liquor
warehouse. Some of the men became inebriated while others
played poker. Lieutenant Heinen, who had aided in directing
the motor march and had lost sleep for several days, went
to bed.9
After one week of occupation, the Japanese moved the
battalion from the tea plantation to Batavia by train, and
then marched them three miles to a native camp called
Tanjong Priok, which lay approximately two hundred yards
from the docks. Occasionally, the Japanese permitted the
men to work on the Batavia docks on a volunteer basis.
Many volunteered for work to relieve the boredom and
hopefully to find other means of supplement for their
meager rations. Essentially, the diet consisted of
8George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:30; C. A. Cates, personal interview,Oral History Collection, North Texas State UniversityLibrary, OH 185:29; Lawrence Brown, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 178:32-4.
9Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, pp. 18-19;Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 69:30.
71
exceedingly poor quality rice that had been swept up from
the warehouse floors. The men cooked their rations by
filling burlap bags with the grain and placing the bags
into barrels of boiling water.'0 A Japanese halted one
group unloading canned sweet cream to lecture the captives
on stealing food. The officer told the prisoners that they
could not steal from the Japanese because Nipponese were
too smart. As the man turned to walk away someone from
the ranks of prisoners threw an empty sweet cream can out
behind him.11
The Japanese Army incarcarated approximately 1,200
prisoners at Tanjong Priok, and the guards counted the
inmates each morning and again at bedtime. Except for
Battery E, the battalion remained intact. Strange as it
may seem, some of the men were allowed to keep their
weapons. Uell Carter possessed an automatic pistol, and
others retained different types of rifles; many of the
soldiers still held hand grenades. Carter did not consider
using the weapon because of prison rumors that American
forces soon would recapture the island. Carter thought
". . . it would be a few days here 'till our bunch got
B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH162:100.
1lTbid.
72
things straightened out, and so we were just having
a lark." 12
After five weeks in Tanjong Priok, the battalion
travelled a short distance to a Dutch Army camp, formerly
the base of the Netherlands Indies Tenth Bicycle Regiment.13
The new prison, known as Bicycle Camp, impressed the
Americans with its Banyan trees, paved streets, and stone
barracks. The quarters were arranged six on each side of
a center street; each unit could house approximately three
hundred men. The sanitary facilities at Bicycle Camp were
excellent, relative to Tanjong Priok: Dutch-type latrines
with no commode, only a hole and a place for two feet to
be placed on either side. The men bathed in large concrete
vats filled with water by first soaping themselves and then
dashing the water over their heads native style.14
At Bicycle Camp, the Second Battalion discovered
12Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 69:32-35;Uell Carter, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 56:33; HoraceChumley, personal interview, Oral History Collection, NorthTexas State University Library, OH 199:32.
13There is disagreement on mode of travel. Naylor statesin Oral History Collection, OH 72:34-36, that the trip was onfoot; Clyde Fillmore in Prisoner of War, p. 18, says by train;and P. J. Smallwood in Oral History Collection, OH 166:44,says by truck.
14J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 174:45;C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 185:32; Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 188:45; Keith Naylor, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 72:36-48; Alfred Brown, personal
73
survivors of the U.S.S. Houston, which had been sunk off
the east coast of Java on the night of February 28, 1942.
The artillerymen found the sailors in rags as they had
escaped from the sinking ship with only the clothes on
their bodies and had remained in the water for several
hours before rescue. Consequently, the men of the Second
Battalion shared clothing with the Houston crew.15
Americans encountered Japanese humiliation and
brutality for the first time at Bicycle Camp. The guards
forced the Americans to cut their hair close to the scalp
Japanese style. Soon after the battalion arrived, the
prisoners learned that their captors expected them to
sign a pledge of allegiance to the Japanese Army, but the
American officers ordered the men not to sign. When the
Japanese found the men refusing to sign the pledge, they
placed the prisoners under the sun and seated them with
their legs crossed, their arms folded and allowed no
movement. The men sat in this position for several hours.
As it became apparent that the Japanese would ultimately
kill the prisoners that refused to sign the pledge, the
interview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity-Library, OH 188:52; P. J. Smallwood, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 166:46, 57.
15Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 19; RobertGregg, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 69:45; B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, OH 162:42.
74
American officers ordered their men to comply with
the request. 1 6
The guards required prisoners to maintain a watch
at the end of each building. Whenever a Japanese
soldier came near the barracks, the sentry cried,
"ki o toukete (attention)," and all occupants would, stand
at attention until the Japanese passed by. Then the
sentinel would give the command, "yashumi (rest)."
George Burns found that "we had to treat them 5Japanese7
like gods. We had to salute them even if it was a one
star private. We had to bow to them [if a prisoner wore
no hat or ca7."17
The Bicycle Camp roster included many different
nationalities: British, Indians, Australians, Dutch, and
Americans. The prisoners not on work detail played volley-
ball and basketball. At times the Americans and Australians
competed against each other in basketball championships.18
16Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 178:42; Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War,pp. 22-23.
17Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 188:62; George Burns, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 176:37. For explicitdescriptions of torture see Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner ofWar, p. 24, and George Burns, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, OH 176:38-40.
18Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 21; RobertGregg, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 69:49.
75
A number of men secreted small radios which apprised
the prisoners of events of the outside world. Often the
radios received transmissions from station KFI in Los
Angeles, California. One American civilian captured in
Java had an artificial leg. Later, when the other radios
had been confiscated, this prisoner concealed a radio in
his hollow prosthetic leg.19
The Japanese transferred the men of E Battery to
the Jaarmarket nearly market/ at Surabaja, and instructed
the prisoners to bow or salute. E Battery personnel
decided they would not acquiesce to this requirement.
Before testing the rule, however, the Americans saw another
Allied prisoner beaten with clubs for refusal to bow. After
this action, "They LJapanesej didn't have trouble from then
on. Everybody bowed or saluted." A short time later
E Battery artillerymen moved by train from Surabaja to
Bicycle Camp.20
Six months after arrival at Bicycle Camp, the Japanese
ordered the first group, composed of 191 Americans and
88 Australians, to report to the docks. Some of the men
19The civilian, a Sperry Instruments representative,maintained the radio, undetected, until the end of the war;the artificial leg.and radio are now in the SmithsonianMuseum. Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 199:40.
20Frank Fujita, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 59:42.
76
had been assigned numbers and they felt the selection
for shipment was determined by the individual's number.
In any case, the first group left the camp on October 2,
1942, for an unknown destination. 2 1
21Glyde Fillmore, Prisoner of ar, p. 31;P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:62.
CHAPTER VI
LATER CONFINEMENT
Nine days after leaving Bicycle Camp, the first
group of men from the Second Battalion arrived at
Singapore and the second section departed from Batavia
for Singapore. Japanese prison camp abuse proved less
brutal than the Singapore voyage. The Japanese Navy had
forced the prisoners into the holds of the ships with
only a few square inches of space allotted to each man.
Captives suffered from intense heat and rancid air.
Guards occasionally allowed prisoners on deck for food,
water, or latrine call. The latrines, wooden outhouses
1on each side of the vessel, extended out over the water.
Upon arriving at Singapore, the Japanese removed the
captives from the ships and marched them to Changi Barracks
prisoner-of-war camp, formerly a British Army post. The
camp contained stone barracks, three stories high with red
tile roofs, paved roads, parade grounds, and lovely palm
trees. Soon the Japanese assigned to the Americans the
1 Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War (Wichita Falls:Nortex Offset Publications, Inc., 1973), p. 32; W. L.Starnes, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 186:49.
77
78
task of clearing a rubber plantation for garden space.
The work was not difficult, and some battalion members
felt that ". . . relatively speaking, everybody had kind
of a resort deal at Changi."2 The Americans bought
tobacco from natives who came through camp, and supple-
mented their diet by stealing chickens and ducks from
the British and coconuts from the palm trees.3
The presence of numerous Indian guards (Sikhs) who
earlier had been Allies, plus the British officers's
insistence on saluting, provoked the Americans. Battalion
members refrained from saluting even their own officers
after leaving Java and certainly refused to salute Allied
leaders. This resistance caused an incident when a United
States soldier refused to salute an English colonel and
British military police placed the American in confinement.
The Second Battalion commander quickly demanded and received
the American's release.4
The men maintained some contact with the outside world
while in Changi by means of a radio the British possessed.
Those who listened to broadcasts relayed the information
to the other captives in the camp.5
2 Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, pp. 33-35; AlfredBrown, personal interview, Oral History Collection, NorthTexas State University Library, OH 188:71; Jack Moss,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 45:24; J. B. Heinen, Jr.,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 174:69.
3lbid. 4 Ibid. 5lbid.
79
The men from Battery E presently arrived at Changi,
having left Bicycle Camp a short time after the second
group. They bivouacked in an area near the other Americans,
and some of the men were given passes to visit their friends.
A small number of Second Battalion men remained in Bicycle
Camp. Horace Chumley stayed in the Java prison because he
had a foot problem. He and seven other Americans remained
at Bicycle Camp throughout the war.'
Approximately sixty Americans, including Houston
crewmen and Second Battalion artillerymen, plus 200 other
Allied prisoners, left Singapore October 27, 1942. The
Japanese had chosen these men, because of their mechanical
or technical training, to be shipped to Japan. Frank
Fujita, the American-Japanese sergeant, found himself
enroute to his father's homeland.7
Soon after January 1, 1943, the remaining members
of the American group at Changi boarded a train to Pria,
five hundred miles up the Malang Peninsula. Here the men
transferred to a ship; on the morning of January 11, 1943,
the vessel steamed out of the harbor and headed north.
6 Ibid.; Horace Chumley, personal interview, OralHistory Collection, North Texas State University Library,OH 199:68.
7Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 37; FrankFujita, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 59:47.
80
The Americans were aboard the Dia Mori Maru, which was
accompanied by another transport and a small warship.
Four days later, American B-24 Liberator bombers attacked
the convoy. They quickly sank the second transport which
carried Dutch prisoners and Japanese civilian technicians.
The flyers next turned their attention to the warship and
sank it. Four bombs fell near the Dia Monji Maru, destroying
lifeboats and wooden latrines. One bomb exploded at close
proximity and fragments entered the hull killing several
Australian soldiers. The Japanese attempted to battle
the American planes with a small cannon located on the
stern. The gun crew inadvertently traversed the barrel
toward the superstructure of the ship and damaged the
bridge with a cannon shell. In the next attack, one of
the American bombs struck the stern, destroying the cannon,
killing the gun crew, and setting the ship on fire. Seeing
columns of smoke billowing up, the American pilots left the
area. The Japanese extinguished the fires and began picking
up survivors from the sea, then departed for Moulmein, Burma.
The holes in the side of the ship created a problem; near
Moulmein, the ship began to list heavily. A Japanese officer
covered the deck telling the troops, "You men get on that
side of the ship. There's too many on this side. It's been
hit and is sinking." The prisoners ran to the undamaged side
81
of the vessel and the list was corrected. The ship reached
Moulmein a short time later.8
As the ship cruised into the harbor, some Americans
saw the pagoda that Rudyard Kipling mentioned in his poem,
"On the Road to Mandalay." The prisoners disembarked and
marched through the city to a provisional prison for
convicted felons where they remained for several days.9
While they suffered from poor accommodations, each day
the prisoners of war received from the guards only two
meager meals of rice and one pint of water. Many of the
men contracted dysentery because of the baneful sanitation
facilities.10
Within a week the prisoners boarded another train and
journeyed south to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. The men detrained
and met Lieutenant Colonel Y. Negatomo, who warned them to
8Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, pp. 37-40; P. J.Smallwood, personal interview, Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 166:87; GeorgeBurns, personal interview, Oral History Collection, NorthTexas State University Library, OH 176:64; Lawrence Brown,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 178:68; Jack Moss, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 45:29.
9Some of the prisoners were housed in a mortuary,and others stayed in a former leper colony. Robert Gregg,personal interview, Oral History Collection, North TexasState University Library, OH 69:59.
10Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 72:59;Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, pp. 40-41.
82
do their jobs because the railroad would be built on
the bodies of white men, if necessary.
From Thanbyuzayat, the prisoners travelled by truck
to their first work camp on the railroad, 18 Kilo Camp.12
The men found the camp at 18 Kilo representative of all
work camps they would see along the railroad. Burmese
natives erected bamboo huts twenty feet wide by one
hundred and sixty feet long. Local builders constructed
this housing by driving large bamboo shafts into the ground
for uprights, then three feet above the ground lashing
crossmembers to the uprights and covering these with split
bamboo. This horizontal construction served as the floor
and a bed. The Burmese then added a pitched roof and
covered it by thatching bamboo leaves. In the elaborate
camps, the huts contained six-foot aisles down the center
with raised sections for beds on either side.13
At Kilo 18 the prisoners first encountered Korean
guards, but in their early relationships the Americans
could not distinguish Koreans from Japanese. The prisoners
soon noticed that a Japanese was always in charge of the
"lClyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 43.
12The various camps in Burma were called kilo camps,preceded by a number. This number indicated the distancein kilos from Thanbyuzayat; 18 Kilo Camp was 18 kilos fromthe railhead at Thanbyuzayat.
13P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:93; Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 45.
83
Korean guards, and some prisoners regarded the Korean
:L4guards as sub-human.1 Other captives felt the Koreans
were savage because they ranked less than privates in
the Japanese Army. Some Americans considered the Korean
brutality a result of the guards's frustrations.15
The Americans began in sections of fifty men or kumis.
Originally, the prisoners's quotas constituted one cubic
meter per man per day. A captive fulfilled his quota on
a grade level project by digging and moving one cubic
meter; on a filling project, the prisoner procured one
meter of dirt and moved it to the fill area. The Japanese
furnished no equipment beyond a pick, shovel, and burlap
bag tied to the end of a bamboo pole. The prisoners
enjoyed reasonably good health at 18 Kilo and could fulfill
their quotas before the end of the workday. Some of the
Americans warned the swift workers to slow their pace, but
they continued to work at rapid rates to finish early.
As a result, the Japanese soon increased the quota per man
to one and one-half cubic meters and later to two and one-
half meters. Later, during the monsoon season, guards forced
14A British medical officer described the Koreans as. purely amoral coolie vermin. . . brutal by nature as
well as by orders." Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust,Australia in the War of 1939-1945, 7 vols. Canberra:Australian War Memorial, 1957), 4:547.
15George Lawley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 164:41.
84
men to work until 3:00 A.M. to complete their quotas.
During these periods the men would frequently finish the
previous day's quotas only two hours before beginning a
new day. The prisoners earned ten cents per day; they
worked ten days and then rested one.16
The work varied; one kumi would dig a ditch one day,
and the following day be assigned to unload rails. The
Americans soon realized that the Japanese ignored the
quality of the work. Captives neither packed nor blocked
the fill dirt; they placed cross-ties upon the loose dirt,
followed by the rails and completed by filling in ballast.
This type of construction usually sagged or, during the
monsoon season, collapsed completely.17
Bridges, occasionally two or three tiers high, spanned
rivers and gorges. The captives constructed pilings from
teakwood logs, which were fifteen inches in diameter by
twenty-five to thirty feet in length, by sharpening one
end with a hatchet. Natives used elephants to hoist logs
until the primitive pile driver could force the log into
16George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:74-75; Jack Moss, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 45:32; B. D. Fillmore, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, North Texas StateUniversity Library, OH 162:85.
17Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 69:78: George Lawley, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 164:47.
85
the ground; the pile driver was a five-hundred pound
weight with a small hole in the center. The top of the
log had a hole drilled and filled with a rod several
centimeters smaller in diameter than the hole in the the
weight. Ropes ran through pulleys from the weight to
the banks; with the rod acting as guide, the prisoners
pulled the weight up by the ropes, and after counting,
"ichi, mio, sanyo (one, two, three)," the men released
the ropes and the weight crashed down on the end of the
log, driving it into the river bed. After driving pilings,
the prisoners lifted a horizontal log across the tops of
the uprights and secured it with steel "U" rods. Occasionally,
the unstable bridges leaned precariously. The Japanese then
assigned a kumi to pull the bridge with ropes as elephants
pushed on the other side. The captives then placed a small
brace on the pilings, and the Japanese engineers considered
the structure sound until it began to lean again.18
Elephants labored exhaustively in constructing the
railroad; they pulled stumps of trees, dragged logs, and
placed pilings upright. Natives contracted the elephants
18Captain Earnest Gordon, a Scottish officer whosurvived the construction of the railroad, regarded thecelebrated bridge on the River Kwai as overated; "Muchhas been made of the building of the bridge. . . but itwas, in fact, a relatively minor episode. . . constructionwas finished in less than two months, but it took a yearto build the railroad." Earnest Gordon, Through theValley of the Kwai (New York: Harper and Brothers,~1962),p. 69; George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:80; P. J. Smallwood, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 166:109-110.
86
to the Japanese and rode the beasts while they worked.
George Burns worked closely with several of the large
animals and found that
an old elephant can get as lazy as a man. You'dhave him pulling the stump, and he'd wrap his trunkaround there and just grunt and go on and raise caneand bellow. LThenf The native would rap him withthat. . . pick. . . and that old elephant. . . wouldjerk it out before you could say scat.19
Burns also learned that an elephant can move rapidly when
he saw one become frightened.
He was pulling some kind of old cart. . . and hewas running down the hill to the dump with thisdirt. . . one of the carts turned over. . . he lookedaround and saw that thing following him and he tookoff, threw Je native, and they like to have nevercaught him.
Prisoners constantly thought of food. Often the men
used their limited funds to purchase food from the natives.
In the first few camps, natives circulated through the
areas on payday, selling eggs, tobacco, and other commodi-
ties. Later, the men found they could eat virtually any
animal if given the opportunity. One camp contained a
Dutch doctor of veterinary medicine who examined the stray
dogs that the men caught. If the veterinarian certified
that the animals were healthy, the men ate them. Many of
19George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:82-83.
20Ibid.
87
the captives ate python snake and found it tasteful.
Prisoners considered strange food necessary for survival.21
Captives also regarded each day or month as time to
be endured for survival.' P. J. Smallwood ". . . did it
one day at a time. . . . I went to bed at night and
tomorrow was a new ball game. . . tomorrow'd be the last
day we'd be there." Robert Gregg was more general; he
lived his confinement ". . . three months at a time. . .
most of us felt like within. . . a short time that the
Americans would come in and get us. . . . I never gave
up for a second that I wouldn't be going to come home."
George Lawley faced his imprisonment ". . . six months
at a time." 22
The Americans and British approached survival
differently. Most Americans formed families of four or
more in a group. These men cared for one another, and
if one member became sick the other "family" members shared
their meager medical supplies.23 Captain Earnest Gordon,
who closely observed his group's behavior, noticed that
2lp. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:95; George Burns, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 176:74-75; Lawrence Brown,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 178:94.
22 P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 166:59; Robert Gregg, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 69:36; George Lawley, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 164:26.
23The family ties still exist; at Lost Battalionsurvivor conventions, wartime groups tend to excludeeveryone but the original family members.
88
many British soldiers lived by the jungle rule: "I look
out for myself and to hell with everyone else." 24
Clandestine radios furnished additional support
in the search for survival; world news progressively
became more optimistic as time passed. Expected mail
also sustained the prisoners. At times guards allowed
captives to mail cards to their relatives.25 Infrequent
attempts at sabotage also lifted the men's spirits.
Jack Moss, who aided in the blasting of rocks and boulders,
ravelled dynamite fuses causing them to burn too fast.
Moss watched from a distance as this action ".. . got rid
of a few of them [Japanese7." Some prisoners stole
batteries from Japanese Army trucks and hid them to use
for radio power.26
As the distance from Thanbyuzayat increased, the
prisoners's health deteriorated. Fevers, malaria, dysentery,
and beriberi became prevalent. Heinen helped treat sickness
in his kumi.
Now I've taken a man's temperature. . . at 1090.I carried him in myself at the end of the workday.
24Earnest Gordon, Valley of the Kwai, pp. 74-75; LawrenceBrown, personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 178:102.
25C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral History Col-lection, North Texas State University Library, OH 185:88;Keith Naylor, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 72:97-98; George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:99.
26Jack Moss, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 45:33-34.
89
The man would get up the next morning and go towork. At three o'clock in the afternoon. . . whenI knew that chill and fever were going to hit,he'd come out of the hole. We'd lay him down inthe brush and he'd go into a coma with his chillsand his fever. We had to carry him home becauseit'd still be with him. Then he'd get up and goto work again the next morning.27
Tropical ulcers also depreciated the prisoners's health;
the smallest scratch became infected in the tropical
climate and deteriorated into an enlarged section of
decayed flesh. Treatment constituted removal of the
dying skin. Doctor Theodore Hekking, a Dutch prison
physician, devised the method of treatment. Robert Gregg
saw the doctor ". . . take what he called a spoon and
just scrape that Fulcer7 out 'till there wasn't anything
left and then he'd make a compress out of boiling water."28
Frequently, Burmese advised prisoners of native
remedies to cure diseases. C. A. Cates contracted a
mild case of cholera. On a native's advice, Cates ate
charcoal made from burned rice; the charcoal ostensibly
would absorb the impurities in his system. By using this
remedy, Cates survived while many other cholera victims who
ignored the natives's advice died.29
2 7J. B. Heinen, Jr., personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH .174:115.
28Robert Gregg, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 69:64.
2 9C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 185:82.
90
When sickness became acute in a given prisoner, the
doctors assigned the man to the hospital camp, although
physicians avoided this action where possible because
few men survived the hospitalization.30 John Stivers,
a United States Navy pilot from the Houston, returned
from the hospital after undergoing surgery. Stivers had
a brain tumor. Fortunately, a prominent Australian
neurosurgeon practiced at the hospital camp. The prisoners
made an instrument from a saw blade and the surgeon removed
the tumor.31
The men soon discovered the symptoms of approaching
death. When a prisoner receded into utter despair, his
comrades tried to encourage a response by sympathetic
means. If sympathy failed, friends insulted the despondent
prisoner by "1. . . calling his mother a whore and his
grandmother a bitch and his daddy a drunkard. . . . If
he won't get angry, he won't live. You'll bury him the
day after tomorrow." In the first days of the railroad,
the traditional customs of burying the dead were observed.
"The first man that died we tried to do it right. .
The ship's carpenter built him a nice teakwood coffin.
but they the dead7 got to coming so fast and they
30The man called the hospital camp, "the burial ground."Jack Moss, personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH45:39.
31Stivers survived the surgery but died after liberation.Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 150; J. B. Heinen, Jr.,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 174:132.
91
SU R \ A A m
1q7At~y fy p fA-Ar
9443 AN sJ
Figure 3A4LL -+--+-+---- The Railroad
l soT AtSyOt-AtyAT-
t1
t
92
Lthe carpenters just didn't have time to do it." As the
railroad moved deeper into the jungle, the death rate
increased. At 85 Kilo Camp, the burial detail interred
nine deceased prisoners in one day.32
The death rate increased substantially in the spring
of 1943. The Japanese, progressively more concerned that
the railway would not be completed at the appointed time,
pressured the prisoners for more production. The monsoon
season had begun, but in spite of the weather the Japanese
continued the pressure and harassed the prisoners with the
command, "speedo, speedo." 3 3
By the middle of 1944, the railroad was complete.
The Japanese transferred some prisoners to a camp in Siam
LThailand7 called Kanchanaburi; near this encampment the
Japanese built a monument to the workers who had died in
the railroad construction. Japanese dignitaries performed
a ceremony at Three Pagoda Pass and dedicated a twenty-five-
foot shrine to the 70,000 persons who perished on the
project.
32George Burns, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 176:93; P. J. Smallwood, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 166:115.
33During the monsoon season, water stood under thebarracks, and Cates even saw fish swimming under his bunk.C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 185:80.
3 4 Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 97; P. J.Smallwood, personal interview, Oral History Collection,OH 166:123-124.
93
The Second Battalion, which until this time had been
relatively intact on the railroad, became fragmented.
Some of the men went to a camp about fifty miles from
Bangkok to work on Japanese gun emplacements. Others
travelled by train to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia, and later on
a barge to Saigon, Vietnam, where they worked at Tan Son Nhut
Airfield or at the Saigon oil refinery. Still others went
to Tamarkan, Siam, and subsequently to Saigon.35 A final
group volunteered to act as an advance party from Tamarkan
to Chungkai, Siam. The balance of the Americans at
Tamarkan were never shipped to Chungkai, however, and the
six Americans in the advance party remained separate from
the Second Battalion members for the duration of the war.
Once the Second Battalion emerged from the Burma jungle,
the conditions and food improved. Prisoners worked little,
and in some cases, not at all.36
The Second Battalion members languidly accepted the
news that the war had ended. "Men were stunned. We had
been hoping for just this so long that when it did come, we
could not grasp the significance of the news. . .1.37
35Many of the American prisoners were present in Saigonwhen the Vietnamese people instigated their revolution, underHo Chi Mihn, against the French. P. J. Smallwood, personalinterview, Oral History Collection, OH 166:165.
3 6Jack Moss, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, OH 145:43; P. J. Smallwood, personal interview,Oral History Collection, OH 166:164-168; Lawrence Brown,personal interview, Oral History Collection, OH 178:117, 143.
37Clyde Fillmore, Prisoner of War, p. 125.
CHAPTER VII
LIBERAT ION
By the end of hostile military actions, members of
the Lost Battalion lived in prisoner of war camps from
Bicycle Camp and Batavia in Java, to Chungkai in Thailand.
Horace Chumley, who remained at Bicycle Camp the entire
time, joined three Australian prisoners and commandeered
four Japanese trucks. They drove the vehicles to a
Japanese warehouse and ". . . in Hollywood fashion. .,.
shot the lock off the door and loaded the trucks with
shoes and clothing. The men transported the trucks out
into the farming district of the island and traded the
clothes for fresh vegetables, which they gave to the
inmates of a women's prison near Bicycle Camp.1
The British rescue teams arrived in Java, but did
not process the American prisoners. Later, a United Press
reporter located the Americans and radioed the information
to his headquarters. Shortly thereafter, two United States
Army Air Corps C-54 Skymaster aircraft landed at Batavia
to evacuate the Americans.2
1Horace Chumley, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH199:94-95.
2Ibid.94
95
After receiving news of the Japanese surrender,
Alfred Brown's group travelled to Bangkok, Thailand, and
quartered themselves in a warehouse with other Allied
soldiers. American air transports arrived to ferry the
former prisoners to a hospital, but the British camp
commander pointed out that there were ten British prisoners
to each American and accordingly instigated a quota system
of evacuation. Brown recalls that
This went on for a couple of days. . . theAmericans were sending about eight planes downthere and the British two. The British weretaking up all the planes. So the American flyersstopped there one day. This flyer says, '.. .How many Americans are down there in that warehouse?'They told them. They [the American flyers7. . . gotthe truck and said, 'Take us down to that warehouse.'These American flyers came in and said, 'All youAmericans get ready to go to Rangoon. By God, we'retired of coming down here and hauling British backwhen they won't send any planes.' They put nothingbut Americans on American planes. They (the Americanflyers said, 'we're not coming back anymore.'1 3
P. J. Smallwood heard of the surrender while he was
in Saigon. Within a few days, Smallwood saw American
aircraft landing at the Saigon Airfield, and shortly a
group of American soldiers, led by a major with an American
flag on the back of his leather jacket, arrived at the camp.
The American major said,
I have come to take the Americans out and nobodyelse. That's all that's going with us. . . ifyou have a grudge against someone, if you want to
3Alfred Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH188:146-148.
96
kill them, go ahead. That's your business.We can't stop you. But I hope you'll rememberthat you'll live with your conscience the restof your life. . . .
Smallwood later saw two Australians kill a guard with
their hands.4
B. D. Fillmore went to a hospital camp near Cratchai,
Thailand. A Japanese Army unit bivouacked nearby, and
one day Fillmore saw the Japanese burning papers and crying.
Later, an Australian sergeant called the prisoners together
and announced the surrender. Fillmore noticed that the
Korean guards changed into black suits and left the area.
On the following day, one of the Korean guards returned
with a truck of food and began selling the food to the
prisoners. Four days later, an American officer arrived
at the camp and arranged for the Americans to be sent to
Saigon. Within a week, the army planes flew the men to
Calcutta, India.5
Lawrence Brown's group flew from Rangoon, Burma, to
Calcutta. During the flight the pilot came back to the
passenger compartment and asked, "Any of you guys from
Texas?" The ex-prisoners all answered, 'yes." The pilot
4 P. J. Smallwood, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH166:204-210.
5B. D. Fillmore, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH162:92-96.
97
then asked, "How about Decatur LBrown's hometown]?"
Brown called the pilot back to his seat and saw that
"This darn kid was going to high school when I left
Decatur. . . to think that I'd run onto that guy in
Calcutta, a major in the Air Force and he was flying me
home."
All the surviving Lost Battalion members travelled
to the 142nd Convalescent Hospital in Calcutta, India.
Through a mix-up in urine samples, C. A. Cates stayed
at the hospital longer than the others. The army medical
staff released the wrong man and forced Cates to remain
in the hospital until the doctors were certain that no
disease was present. During his detainment, Cates
progressively ate more food each day on a regular basis,
which contrasted with the prisoners-of-war customary small
meals served five times a day. While waiting for clearance
to return to the United States, Cates met one of the bomber
pilots that had bombed the three-ship convoy near Moulmein,
Burma, in 1943.7
The prisoners who survived the captivity developed
a philosophy of tolerance and gratitude; no member of the
6Lawrence Brown, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH178:150.
7C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH162:appendix.
98
Lost Battalion sought to revenge their former captors.
Cates possibly spoke for the survivors when he said,
"I couldn't question my luck. . . because some of the
fellows that we left back at Camp Bowie hit Salerno 8
and didn't get out. . . . Who had the good luck and
who had the bad luck?"9
8 The first American amphibious landing on theEuropean mainland began on September 9, 1943; theThirty-sixth Division led the landing. Official Records,Thirty-sixth Division, microfilm of records and reports,Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas, Reel I (No. 330).
91C. A. Cates, personal interview, Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH185:107.
CHAPTER VIII
ANALYSIS OF MOBILIZATION AND CAPTURE OF THE SECOND BATTALION
Some Second Battalion members considered the
unit to be ill-fated. A reasonable case can be
presented to support such a claim. The Second
Battalion was one of the first National Guard units
to be mobilized, and it was selected for shipment over-
seas, ostensibly because of its achievement while on
maneuvers. Battalion members argue, however, that the
record was accumulated by using simulated weapons firing
imaginary ammunition.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff ordered the Pensacola Convoy, of which the
Second Battalion was a part, to return to Hawaii. President
Roosevelt's intervention prevented the convoy's return and
committed vital American forces to an area that Winston
Churchill and other Allied military leaders regarded as
second priority. The United States Army with unfathomable
logic selected the Second Battalion for ground crews of
the Nineteenth Bomb Group, despite the fact that the convoy
contained nearly 5,000 soldiers, many of them United States
99
100
Army Air Corps ground crewmen. Later, when the Nineteenth
Bomb Group prepared to abandon the island and fly to
Australia, the flyers requested that the Second Battalion
be allowed to accompany them. The army refused, saying
that American military presence was necessary for Allied
forces's morale. This assertion is weak. General
Julian F. Barnes, who went to Java to explain the necessity
for the Americans to remain, did not elaborate on how one
American unit (less than five hundred men) could sustain
the Allied armies's morale. The Netherlands East Indies
government apparently was not extremely impressed with the
Americans's efforts; the island capitulated shortly after
the invasion. Furthermore, the battalion's presence did
not elevate the Dutch leaders's morale enough to prevent
them from fleeing to Australia. The facts indicate that
no Allied government concerned itself with the American
unit's location, least of all the Netherlands Indies forces
which were unable to maintain basic military information
about the Japanese forces that were attacking them at point
blank range. The United States Army apparently regarded
the battalion as an expendable pawn, which it utilized to
convince the Allied forces that America had not abandoned
the Dutch colony. The battalion, relinquished by their
101
military leaders and forced to assent to the Dutch
capitulation, essentially vanished intact into, the murky
world of Japanese occupied territories, hence the
designation, the Lost Battalion. The battalion members
experienced the sensation that the unit was not lost,
but that the world itself was lost.
BIBL IOGRAPHY
Manuscript Materials
Official Records, Thirty-sixth Division, microfilm ofrecords and reports, Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas.
Official History of the Thirty-sixth Division file, TexasNational Guard Archives, Camp Mabry, Texas.
United States Government Records (published)
U. S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 77th Cong.,1st sess., 1941, 87, pt. 1.
U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation ofthe Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings, 79th Cong., 1st sess.,16, pt. 4.
U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation ofthe Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings, 79th Cong., lst sess.,1946, pt. 6.
U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation ofthe Pearl Harbor Attack: Heari ns, 79th Cong., 1st sess.,1946, pt. 10.
U. S. Statutes at Lang, 1939-1941, vol. 54.
U. S. Statutes at Larg, 1941, vol. 55.
United States Government Publications
Conferences at Washington, 1941-1942, and Casablanca, 1943.Foreign Relations of the United States. Washington:U. S. Government Printing Office, 1968.
Diplomatic Papers, Far East, 1941. Foreign Relations ofthe United States, vol. 4. Washington: U. S.Government Printing Office, 1956.
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103
Foreign Relations ofthe United States, vol. 5. Washington: U. S.Government Printing Office, 1956.
, Japan, 1931-1941. Foreign Relations ofthe United States. Washington: U. S. GovernmentPrinting Office, 1955.
Federal Register, vol. 6, no. 109, doc. no. 41-5359,June 14, 1941. Washington: U. S. GovernmentPrinting Office, 1941.
no. 146, doc. no. 41-5384,July 26, 1941. Washington: U. S. GovernmentPrinting Office, 1941.
Books
Allen, Hollis. The Lost Battalion. Jacksboro: HeraldPublishing ~Co., 1949.
Churchill, Winston S. Their Finest Hour. The SecondWorld War, vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin andCo., 1948.
. The Grand Alliance. The SecondWorld War, vol. 3. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin andCo., 1948.
. The Hinge of Fate. The SecondWorld War, vol. 4. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin andCo., 1948.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. New York:Doubleday and Co., 1948.
Fillmore, Clyde. Prisoner of War. Wichita Falls:Nortex Offset Publications,~Inc., 1973.
Gordon, Earnest. Through the Valley of the Kwai.New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962.
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Brown, Alfred. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 188.
Brown, Lawrence. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 178.
104
Burns, George. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 176.
Carter, Uell. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 56.
Cates, C. A. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 185.
Chumley, Horace. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 199.
Fillmore, B. D. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library,OH 162.
Fujita, Frank. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 59.
Gregg, Robert. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 69.
Heinen, J. B., Jr. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 174.
Killian, George. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library, OH 56.
Lawley, George. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library,OH 164.
Moss, Jack. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 145.
Naylor, Keith. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library,OH 72.
Pace, Glenn. Personal interview. Oral History Collection,North Texas State University Library, OH 134.
Smallwood, P. J. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library,OH 166.
Starnes, W. L. Personal interview. Oral HistoryCollection, North Texas State University Library,OH 186.
105
Maps
"Sketch of the South Pacific area." World Map, NationalGeographic Society, Washington, D. C., 1943.
"Sketch of the Island of Java, Netherlands East Indies."New York Times, March 3, 1942.
"Sketch of Burma and Thailand." Burma Map, NationalGeographic Society, Washington, D. C., 1946.
Newspapers
Dallas Morning News, March 5, 1942.
New York Times, January 2, 1942 to March 10, 1942.
London, Times, January 10, 1942.
Secondary
Books
Leighton, Richard M. and Coakley, Robert. Global Logisticsand Strategy, 1940-1943. The War Department, UnitedStates Army in World War Two, vol. 4. Washington:Department of the Army, 1955.
Lilu, F. F. A Military History of Modern China: 1924-1949.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956.
Morton, Louis. Fall of the Philippines. War in thePacific, United States Army in World War Two, vol. 4.Washington: Department of the Army, 1953.
Watson, Mark Skinner. Prewar Plans and Preparations.The War Department, United States~Army in World WarTwo, vol. 1. Washington: Department of the Army, 1950.
Wigmore, Lionel. The Japanese Thrust. Australia in theWar of 1939-1945, vol.4. Canberra: Australian WarMemorial, 1957.
106
Periodicals
Greene, Marc T. 1939. Lifeblood of the Netherlands.Asia, 39, p. 708.
Newsweek, January 2, 1942, pp. 15-16.
February 16, 1942, pp. 21-22.
, March 2, 1942, pp. 14-15.
, March 16, 1942, p. 25.